Carrier Pigeon Depots

CARRIER PIGEON DEPOTS.

Germany's New Plan For Using the Birds as Messengers.

A result of experiments with carrier pigeons, made of late by the German naval authorities, is that permanent stations for the birds are to be established at Helgoland and Wilhelmshaven in the North sea and Friedrichsort in the Baltic, says the London Globe. Sixty-one carrier pigeon clubs have placed their birds at the service of the German admiralty. The trials made prove that birds can fly home oyersea a distance of 300 kilometers. To insure the delivery of a dispatch for distances of eighty kilometers from land two birds will carry the same message, and for the greater distances up to 300 kilometers from three to five birds will be released, each bearing a copy of the same message. A minimum speed of one kilometer (about two-thirds of a mile) a minute is reckoned upon.

The general practice of sending the message in a quill attached to the tail feather will be abandoned. Instead it will be written on thin vegetable paper, slipped into an india rubber case and secured to the bird's foot by means of an india rubber ring. As the birds arrive at their homes on land the messages will be forwarded to the proper quarter. At the pigeon stations on the North sea coast are wireless telegraphs that will retransmit the message to the head office. In future every war ship, excepting torpedo boats, will be required to carry pigeons to be released at varying distances from the land stations.