Well-trained homers have frequently flown 1,000 and even 1,500 miles, while pigeon-fanciers think no more of a 500-mile flight than horsemen do of a mile trotted in 2:30. On clear days a homer pigeon will fly distances up to 300 miles at a speed close to a mile a minute, though longer distances are usually covered at a somewhat lower rate of speed, the birds instinctively taking advantage of the favoring air-currents and increasing or decreasing their altitude in order to obtain the benefit of them. Long before the Great War it was discovered that pigeons would “home” to movable lofts as unerringly as to stationary ones, this being of great importance from the military point of view because it made it possible to move the cotes up to within a few miles of the firing-line. It also made it comparatively easy to supply the advanced posts with fresh pigeons. It was found that a week or ten days was usually sufficient to acquaint the birds with the new location of the loft and with the surrounding country, moves of twenty-five miles without the loss of any birds being not at all uncommon. Each of these mobile lofts was stocked with seventy-five young birds, six to eight weeks old, of the best pedigreed stock obtainable. Clasped about the leg of each bird was a seamless aluminum band bearing a serial number, the year of birth, and the letters “U. S. A.” These bands are put on soon after birth and cannot be removed except by destroying them. As the birds had never been outside a loft, it was a comparatively easy matter to settle them in their new homes. Their early training was devoted to the development of their flying strength and stamina and to the habit of quick “trapping,” by which is meant the entrance of the bird into the loft immediately upon reaching it, a pigeon that alights on the ground or roosts on the roof of the loft being considered most imperfectly trained. They soon learn to trap without hesitation, a flock of seventy-five birds entering a loft in from ten to twenty seconds after pitching on the roof. To overcome the habit of loafing, birds are fed in the loft after alighting with their favorite grain. After a month or two of this preliminary training the birds are “tossed,” to use the phraseology of the fancier, at increasing distances from the loft, so that by the time they are five or six months old they are flying from fifty to seventy-five miles with speed and certainty. They are then ready for service in the trenches. Not all, however, are assigned to the infantry. Every tank crew carries a complement of pigeons, men from the Pigeon Service are frequently attached to cavalry units, and birds have been used successfully from balloons and airplanes. The infantryman carries his pigeons in a light wicker hamper strapped to his back, each bird wearing a corselet made of crinoline stiffened with whalebone and with strings running to the sides of the basket, thus preventing it from being tossed about and injured.