became of the remaining eighteen was not
known. In 1829, forty-two pigeons, reared
at Maestricht, were conveyed to London.
After being properly marked, they were
let loose about half-past eight on a particular
morning; the first arrived at Maestricht
at a quarter to three, having maintained
an average speed of forty-five miles
an hour (greater if the route had been
at all circuitous); the second and third
arrived about half-past three; seventeen
more came in on the three following days;
the rest were not heard of. It is impossible
even to guess at the route followed and
the rate of speed kept up by those which
occupied fully three days in finding their
way home. In 1830, one hundred and ten
pigeons were brought from Brussels to
London. Being let fly at a preconcerted
time, nineteen of them reached Brussels
within eight hours, one doing the distance
of one hundred and eighty-six miles in five
hours and a half. What became of the
larger number is not recorded. In 1831,
two Liskeard pigeons were brought to
London and let fly. They reached Liskeard—
two hundred and twenty miles distant—in
about six hours. One gained upon the other
a quarter of an hour, equivalent to about
nine miles, during the flight. Some of the
recorded instances of speed seem hardly
credible. On one occasion, we are told, a
gentleman of Cologne, having business to
transact at Paris, laid a wager that he
would let his friends know of his arrival
within three hours after his reaching Paris.
The bet was eagerly taken. He went to
Paris, carrying with him two pigeons which
had a young brood at Cologne. He
arrived at Paris at ten o'clock one morning,
started off the birds at eleven, and they
arrived at Cologne about ten minutes past
one. This is very much like a hundred
and fifty miles an hour—a marvel that
seems to require corroboration. Audubon
says that wild pigeons have appeared at
New York with their crops full of rice,
which they could only have gathered in
Georgia or Carolina; and he calculated
from the time in which pigeons digest food
that the speed of flight must have been a
mile a minute.

How the great capitalists of Europe, in
the days when electric telegraphs were not
yet dreamed of, were wont to convey
information one to another by pigeon-express,
and thereby enable their correspondents to
make profitable purchases or sales before
the rest of the world could be put in
possession of the news in distant countries,
may be well understood. And so may the
use of the pigeon as a messenger in war—
always remembering that the arrangements
must be so made that the bird is flying
home when carrying the message.

NOVEMBER.

SIC TRANSIT.

THE wild north wind is wailing o'er heath, and moor, and brae,
O'er the hill-side, o'er the hollows, its echoes die away;
The Storm-king shakes the forest, scatters red leaves o'er the lea,
Lashes into foam the rivers, into frenzy chafes the sea.

The white owl plains his dirges to the ivy-mantled tower,
The golden bee is dreaming at home of honeyed flower;
The velvet-coated squirrel is wrapped in slumber deep,
Within their winter cloister the brown-eyed dormice sleep.

The thick mist in the gloaming veils wood, and dale, and plain,
Silver rising from the river settling on the firs again;
Chrysanthemums are blooming in crimson and in gold,
Last rays of autumn's beauty: thus is Time's story told!

On Nature, all-exhausted, with her teeming harvest deeds,
When she garnered to her bosom the fruits of springtide seeds;
When she clasped her red-gold treasures exultant to her breast,
Falls repose - her well-earned guerdon. Falls a glorious trance of rest!

A SET OF STUDS.

II. IN A CIRCUS.

ON a soft and sunny morning in
September, a man of handsome appearance
and distinguished manners, whose
admirably fitting garments showed off the
proportions of his stalwart figure to its
best advantage—it is fit that the present
writer should here state that the above is
intended as a description of himself, as
otherwise it might not, probably, be
recognised—might have been seen striding
through the streets of Scarborough, and
making his way to a large wooden building
erected on the north side of the town.
This was the circus of Messrs. Jacobus
and Eves; and on reaching it, I, the
individual in question, found Mr. Jacobus in
waiting to receive me, the object of my
visit being to make myself acquainted with
the inner life of a travelling circus of a
superior kind, and to learn some of the history
and statistics of its management. By
travelling circus, I do not mean one of those
establishments which, during the summer
months, "fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away" from one little