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Show THE HOMING INSTINCT IN PIGEONS. Mr. Ernest Ingersoll contributes to Scribner a curiously interesting paper on "How Animals get Home," from which we clip these paragraphs. Mr. Ingersoll rejects the theory of any special homing instinct, attributing the remarkable examples of returning animals to an attentive use of the senses. One of the most striking powers possessed by animals is that of finding their way home from a great distance, and over a road with which they are supposed to be unacquainted. It has long been a question whether we are to attribute these remarkable performances to a purely intuitive perception by the animal of the direction and the practicable route to his home, or whether they are the results of a conscious study of the situation, and a definite carrying out of well-judged plans. Probably the most prominent example of this wonderful power is the case of homing pigeons. These pigeons are very strong of wing, and their intelligence is cultivated to a high degree; for their peculiar 'gift' has been made use of since 'time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.' The principle of heredity, therefore, now acts with much force, nevertheless, each young bird must be subjected to severe training in order to fit it for those arduous competitions which annually take place among first-rate birds. As soon as the fledgling is fairly strong on its wings, it is taken a few miles from the cote and released. It rises into the air, looks about it and starts straight away for home. There is no mystery about this at all, when it has attained the height of a few yards the bird can see its cote, and full of that strong love of home which is so characteristic of it wild ancestors, the blue-rocks, it hastens back to the society of its mates. The next day the trial distance is doubled, and the third day is still further increased, until in a few weeks it will return from a distance of seventy miles, which is all that a bird-of-the-year is "fit" to do; and when two years old will return from 200 miles, longer distances being left to more mature birds. But all this training must be in a continuous direction; if the first lesson was toward the east, subsequent lessons must also be; nor can the added distance each time exceed a certain limit, for then, after trying this way and that, and failing to recognize any landmark, the bird will simply come back to where is was thrown up. Moreover it must always be clear weather. Homing pigeons will make no attempt to start in a fog, or if they do get away, a hundred chances to one they will be lost. Nor do they travel at night, but settle down at dusk and renew their journey in the morning. When snow disguises the landscape, also, many pigeons go astray. None of these circumstances seriously hampers the semi annual migrations of swallows or geese. They journey at night as well as by day, straight over vast bodies of water and flat deserts, true to the north or south. Homing pigeons fly northward or southward, east or west, equally well, and it is evident that their course is guided only by observation. Watch one tossed. On strong pinions it mounts straight up into the air a hundred feet. Then it begins to sweep around in great circles, rising higher and higher, untilif the locality is seventy-five or one hundred miles beyond where it has ever been before - it will go almost out of sight. Then suddenly you will see it strike off upon a straight course, and that course is homeward. But take the same bird there a second time and none of these aerial revolutions will occur, its time is too pressing, its homesickness too intense for that; instantly it will turn its face toward its owner's dove cote. |