HOMING PIGEONS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 14

HOMING PIGEONS

ENDURANCE TESTS ACROSS THE

BRISTOIi" CHANNEL,

tTew people^ reaUse the .wonderful feate at-; pluck and endurance ahcieved by some of the homing pigeons which every, week are taking part in races from, the Continental, resorts, states a fancier in trie "MancKestef'Guardian." Only just recenUyj-'aLGumHerland ..bird flew until 'exhausted and then alighted on a trawler, off Lowestoft-.. .After a-.iew; hours' rest it. resumed its journey home. That is one instance of many,. . On one occasion an;.- Otley ~ pigeon, .. liberated, at Guernsey,'lost^its way and fell••' exhausted on a steamer in the Bay of Biscay. It was handed pver. to the Bar lightship, and after thirty. 1 hours' .rest started its journey again 'and 'reached homo safely. It was on'the wing fiftytwo houiarmiafl; and--imM.have;.flown over 1000 miles. ■.!■.■'■'.•■■'

In one of the Yorkshire' Federation races 2000 birds" were'liberated at Arras for a 3QP:mile race home. .The birds encountered' three distinct storms, each increasing*in:~sevefity," but' despite rthe {weather many arrived home the same day, though breasts comletely bared of feathers told of their struggle ,-with the ■windß. -. Stany" of fiiem afiei-i 'reaching home were too exHausted'toVrise from the ySTd in which they had alighted to"; fly into the loft. Scores of. these-birds are drowned every year-'-because,"'such 'is' then;* indomitable....courage, they. fly. ,Un- -. til exhausted and then fair into the seaT PeAajis-Uie^greateßtrfeat^Ot.enduianGe.--on recoH'was'.lhp'of^aryofKsKire' bird' which returnetHroitr a- GontiSental -race three day»-late» -3t was: blindl"in-oiie ' eyg,... EaU'a l9g"sKa£€ere'd, rind'-one■'wiug' riddled''with ash6t,^teutrdespitg tji&jaifl it mußt have suffered'it 'had v flown 1 honife ■ ■, - ' .~