Show government scientists record speed of bird ali lit the swiftest flight ever recorded accurately is in the neighborhood of milet an hour ordinary unhurried flight flighty averages from 20 to 40 miles an ebur according to the species i the united states b ent of agriculture has compiled a complete record of the rnea measured flight speeds of north american and european birds the swiftest denizen of the skies according to this compendium um is the duck cluck hawk whose speed m mg 99 with a stop watch from an airplane was found to be l edween and miles an hour the ragle iagle is relatively slow the department of agriculture compiler found L one rather questionable of miles tor for a golden baw only two entirely trustworthy records of eagle S speeds were found orie of 30 and the other of 60 miles r bird speed records MID re than 20 yearb old are report explains because any possible means of measurement was vas quite inaccurate and some fantastic estimates were made ranging U up t to 0 5 1 or 6 miles a minute most mo lip I 1 sum ul guesses and by far the mosa trustworthy were made by huni titia i A hunter aiming at a bird in cliant had to make three subconscious estimates the distance of his target the speed at which it was moving in order that he would know how far ahead to aim and the speed of his bullet the skilled marksman learned to make allowance for these three factors instinctively but never could explain satisfactorily how he did it only one of these elements of marksmanship the velocity of the bullet could be measured ac curatelo cura tely but says the report it has been found recently by experiment that there is an appreciable loss of time in pulling the trigger against the sky it is practically impossible to ta gauge the exact distance of the bird and the distance it travels may be exaggerated because momentum moment um will carry a shot bird some distance before it falls an overestimate of a very few feet in these figures w will j result in the computation of very high speeds for game birds gunners have been prone to attribute speeds of jot or even miles an hour to ducks |