The Orientation of Birds 143 find there, as the fabulist happily expresses it, "good supper, good lodging, and the rest of it ?" On the other hand, if it is true that local knowledge is not strictly indispensable to assure the return to the lodging, and that the sense of distant orientation is strictly sufficient to guide the animal, we will admit without question that it is possible to make a movable Pigeon cote and accustom its inmates to a nomadic life. Let us suppose that we have transplanted, with all its belongings, a Pigeon cote in the midst of new surroundings, without the least disturbance being brought to the existence of its inhabitants. The latter set at liberty from the time of its arrival will go far away, perhaps, but the Law of Reverse Scent will assure their return. We remarked before that the straying Pigeon knows how to find again the point of release hardly caught sight of in the morning, and to which no agreeable remembrance, no interest, attaches him. With still more reason the inmate of a movable Pigeon cote must try to reconstitute his itinerary. If we carry him away a distance for the release he will come back to find his home at the precise point that it occupied when he left it. The movable cote, arriving in a new lodging place, would be in a condition to render almost immediate ser- vice in that locality. This new way of employing messenger Pigeons, unattainable, according to the ideas we have held up to this time, in matter of orientation, is only the strict application of our theory. Some interesting experiments have proved in a conclusive manner that the fidelity to the natal Pigeon cote could be reconciled with a nomadic existence. A certain number of Pigeons are born and brought up in a wagon arranged as a Pigeon cote. They have no other lodg- ing than their rolling habitation. It matters little to the Pigeon whether the wagon stops today in the heart of a valley, looks for shelter tomorrow in a forest, or settles itself for some time in the maze of houses which form a great city. If we should carry him away some distance from the cote for the release, he will not be guided on his return by his local knowledge, necessarily very slight, that he may have of the surroundings of his wagon, but by his sense of direction which gives him a subjective idea of his position relating to the cote. Practice has, on all points, confirmed our theory. We have had the chance to make some very interesting observations, and we will cite some facts which have a direct reference to our argument. *
- Our experience permits us to settle an interestitiff point. According to M. Dureste, eggs stirred
with a certain violence for a long time do not hatch out. We have found that the rolling on the highway, on the pavement, or in a railway car when the car sets in motion, does not modify in any way the condition of the hatching It is just to add that in the movable Pigeon cote the Pigeons brood with the same regularity as their fellows in an ordinary Pigeon cote.
