At the time the French were making trials with messenger swallows, the young German Emperor ordered extensive experiments to be carried out with carrier pigeons, the same to be tested at the Imperial manoeuvres. Upon this, six of the first Columbarian Societies of Germany each offered to supply twenty-four birds, which are now in training. So we have it that the French are endeavouring to train swallows, the Germans pigeons, and the Russians falcons. Whether the falcons are themselves to convey messages, or are to be used to cut down the swallows and pigeons whilst so engaged, is not stated. The pigeon is a tried messenger, and has, moreover, some interesting and remarkable records. The claim of the swallow, on the other hand, lies all in its possibilities. In this connection "swallow" must stand in a generic sense, and include all birds of the swallow kind as well as the swift. Although, as already stated, swallows are among the most fatiguable of birds, yet one of the American species--the purple martin--would seem to be an exception, and the fact of its having crossed the Atlantic is well known. It is true that swallows attain to an immense speed in their rushes, and there is a well-authenticated instance of one having flown twenty miles in thirteen minutes. The probable speed of the swallow, flying straight and swift, is about one hundred and twenty miles an hour; its ordinary speed ninety miles. The swift attains to two hundred miles, and seems quite tireless on the wing. If swifts can be inspired with a sense of discipline; if French wars can invariably be arranged for the summer months; and if some arrangement can be made with the insect hosts to keep the upper air--_then_ something may come of the Lille experiments. If these things cannot be, the French sharpshooter will never be asked to try flying shots at swifts rushing through the air at the rate of two hundred miles an hour. If the Russians are training falcons to catch pigeons, the Germans must train raptors to catch swallows. Here is a fact which proves the possibility. The hobby falcon, a summer migrant to Britain, hawks for dragon-flies--among the swiftest of insects--which it seizes with its foot and devours in mid-air. It cuts down swifts, larks, pigeons, and, where they are found, bee-birds--all remarkable for their great powers of flight. By way of testing the speed of flight in birds of the swallow kind, Spallanzani captured and marked a sand-martin or bank-swallow--the feeblest of its genus--on her nest at Pavia and set her free at Milan, fifteen miles away. She flew back in thirteen minutes. In striking contrast with the rate at which birds with long pointed wings fly is the fact that one of a pair of starlings (which are short-winged birds) was captured and sent in a basket a distance of upwards of thirty miles by train. It was then freed, and was three hours before it found its way back to its nestlings.