The inexperienced gunner will declare emphatically that any old bird can fly at least a mile a second, but science is of the opinion that the swift, the most speedy bird of all, can make but 250 miles an hour. The swallow can cover ninety-two miles in an hour and the eider-duck ninety miles. All birds of prey are necessarily rapid in their flight; the eagle can attain a speed of 140 miles per hour and the hawk 150 miles. The flight of most migratory birds does not exceed fifty miles an hour, and the crow can accomplish but twenty-five.
A falcon belonging to Henry IV of France escaped from Fontainebleau and was found at Malta twenty-four hours later, having covered a distance of at least 1,530 miles. Sir John Ross, on October 6, 1850, dispatched from Assistance Bay two young carrier-pigeons, one of which reached its dove-cote in Ayrshire, Scotland, on the 13th. This was comparatively slow time for the distance, two thousand miles. It is probable that flights which have occasioned astonishment by greatly exceeding the average have been materially assisted by aerial currents moving in the same direction.—Harper’s Weekly.
(3141)
SWINDLING
An instance of “high finance,” under the guise of religion, is set forth by the daily press in the case of one, Carl Helmstadt, of whom this is said:
The detectives report an instructive conversation with this man, who tells clergymen he is a brand from the burning and needs their prayers for deliverance.
“How many ministers have you swindled?” the detective asked Helmstadt.
“Oh, I don’t know how many.”
“More than one hundred?”
“Sure,” answered Helmstadt. “Why not? We kneel down and pray together, and we both weep. Then I tell them I feel greatly relieved, spiritually. Then I sting them for a few dollars.”