It seems really impossible to extinguish the homing instinct in a good pigeon. A story is told of a French carrier pigeon which was captured by the German soldiers during the siege of Paris in 1870. The bird was being carried in a balloon from Paris to some point in the country, whence it was expected to return to Paris with a message. It was taken to the German headquarters and presented to the commander, Prince Frederick Charles, who sent it to his mother in Germany. Here it was placed in a splendid roomy aviary and carefully fed and nourished; but, although it was kept here, living in the lap of royal luxury for four years, the French pigeon did not forget its fatherland. At the end of that time the aviary was left open one day. The pigeon flew out, mounted high in the air, flew about for a moment, as if to find the points of the compass and started in a straight line for Paris. Ten days afterward it beat its wings against the entrance to its old loft in the Boulevard de Clichy. There it was recognized and its case being brought to public attention it was honored as a patriot returned from foreign captivity. It remained at the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation until it died in 1878. In Belgium, where pigeon racing is as great sport as horse racing is in England and America, the birds have made a speed of seventy miles an hour for short distances. From thirty to forty miles an hour, is, however, the average speed of the average bird. Though not by nature strong of wing or equipped for long flight, the birds have been known to cover great distances. Probably the longest journey of which there is any record was made some ten years ago. A family of birds had been taken from Belgium to New York, where they were to be bred and trained. They were released from the cote before they had been thoroughly domesticated, and straightway disappeared. Two weeks later three of the pigeons, bedraggled, weary and nearly dead, arrived at their native cote in Belgium. How they had made the long ocean voyage nobody ever knew, but they had evidently accomplished it in some manner, and, out of respect for their wonderful achievement, they were allowed to remain in the home to regain which they had suffered so much. [Illustration: HOMING PIGEON. FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.]