GREAT PIGEON RACE

Evening Star, Issue 20314, 24 October 1929, Page 6

GREAT PIGEON RACE

SIXTEEN THOUSAND BIRDS A SIGHT WORTH SEEING. There can bo few prettier sights in this worm tuan that ot a mgnt oi piguus nattering upward into a blue say. muse wno rose cany enough m uiluapest the otner uay saw no rewer tuan ib,UUU iioming pigeons reieaseu there to show now fast they could tty non ic Ward. The birds had been taken all the way from Germany in a special train — thirty-one railway carriages lull to the brim —to take part iu this pigeon jamboree. Needless to say, they were received in state, like any other group oi distinguished visitors, by the Hungarians, who love al Itrue sport and have a soft spot in their hearts for all dumb creatures, feathered or furred. They stayed but one night, hardly long enough to see the sights of the town, and were due to start home again at 5 the next morning. Hut it is with the pigeons as with other long-distance aviators. Atmospheric conditions must be taken into consideration, and at first these seemed anything Tint favourable. The patiently waiting crowd began to fear that it bad sacrificed its morning sleep in vain. But at last telephone messages from various to wins in Austria announced that the aerial road was clear, and punctually at 6 o’clock 2,000 osier cages were opened and 16,000 pairs of snowy, silvery, slatey, and honey-coloured wings shot upward, and, with an unerring instinct, westward. , The nigoons belonged to the ■ first hatch of entries, those which had come from Hamburg, Hanover, and the ilhine districts, and had the longest distance to fly. It is 1,050 kilometres—about 656* miles—from Budapest to Hamburg ns the crow and the pigeon fly. and the brave little travellers, were expected to do the,trip in about fifteen to seventeen hours—those of them which arrived, that is, for among 16,000 there .were-bound to be a few casualties.