including one hundred miles of water, in a bee-line from Cherbourg to Birkenhead at the rate of over a mile a minute. This particular bird had never been any great distance from home, and although English bred it was from a famous strain of Belgian "homers." The large provincial towns in the north of England are the great centres of pigeon-flying. Recently as many as two thousand five hundred birds were liberated at a flight. Every one of these pigeons were out of sight in one minute from the time they were thrown up, a fact which shows how strong is the "homing" instinct within them. The homing pigeon may not supersede the telegraph; but in disturbed times it is the business of an enemy to cut the wires, to tap them, or even to send misleading despatches along them. No such danger need be apprehended from a carrier pigeon, for, if well trained, it will fly straight from loft to loft, never parting with its tiny scroll unless killed or taken--a mishap which is not likely to befall more than one or two of a flight. As already stated, some remarkable results have already been achieved, not only by Government birds--whose performances and proceedings are, of course, kept secret--but by those belonging to the numerous carrier-pigeon societies which have been established on the Continent either for mere amusement or with more patriotic objects in view. Thus, some years ago, a homing pigeon covered the six hundred and fifteen miles--air-line--between Liége, in Belgium, and San Sebastian, in Spain, in the course of a single day; and in the United States as much as five hundred miles has been traversed in from twenty-four to twenty-eight hours--that is, the birds were absent from loft to loft for that period. But, as the progress of the pigeon from one station to another cannot be accurately followed, it may have halted on the way. The bird is believed to travel the first day without stopping, and being stiff and sore, to rest the second day, resuming its journey on the third, since it is seldom that "a return" comes back travel-stained or weary.