A very careful experiment—intended to test the speed of carrier-pigeons—was
tried on Friday week. The bird, one of the homing pigeons known as "Belgian voyageurs," was tossed through the window of a railway carriage as the express train with the Continental mails left the Admiralty pier at Dover. The train had been timed to travel at 60 miles an hour, but the bird reached its .home in Cannon Street twenty minutes before the train. As it could only have shortened the distance by six miles, it had travelled at a pace of 75 miles an hour. The bird, when released from the railway carriage, took nearly half .a minute to discover its bearings, rising to an altitude of half a mile before it Set off on its course,—behaving in fact exactly as it would if it knew that by rising in the air it could see its home in London. The wind was westerly, and the bird carried an urgent communi- cation from the French police.
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