OVER ATLANTIC

Hokitika Guardian, 26 July 1932, Page 8

OVER ATLANTIC

’ FLIGHT OF! ELEVEN PIGEONS. ; , LINER’S ODD ENCOUNTER. , r - av.:' ! ■•'’’ ■ / WELLINGTON, July 23. Two dayis out' from Southhampton, ■and five or six hundred mfleh 'frdni; : nearest land, the linen Tamaroa, ivJSich reached Wellington yfesterday from England, fell in with a flight of eleven pigeons. 'Whether the birds had been blown off ,-their colirse in a jt'Orm, or were trying dp fly ’-from continent to continent, those who were on board could not decide. At all ev-tnls, there the birds were, abroad von the /North, Atlantic, .thinking 'tlie same thoughts probably as Noah’s dove, as they flew over (the watery waste. It could bben se from the rings on theirj legs as they fluttered round the ship that,, they were land-lubbers hopelessly lost. The pigeons arrived 'at the ship on the afternoon of the third day out.. The chief electrician of the Tamaroa, Mr A. Mitford eventually managed’to: catch five of, them, but the remainder • winged their) way round the ship, keeping out of, reach. The five captured ones , were .placed in a roomy locker on top of 'the engineers’ quartans, and it was hoped that tlie six who persisted in accompanying the ship would come down and join them. •But they held out all night 'as “the weather freshened .slightly, and left the ship at about 4 o’clock in the morning.

The next day word was received by wireless from a- tanker 120 miles away bound for Aruba, in the Dutch West Indies, that half a dozen pigeons had reached the ship from nowhere in particular. It was thought ‘likely that’ these 'were the six who declined the Tamaroa’s hospitality. . Mr Mitford has looked, after the five liigeons on board the Tamaroa-ever since, and he fierit, word ’to England When the ship reached the Canal Zone that the birds had come aboard. There, has not yet, of course,'been tim e for-r; reply, and Mr Mitford intends to look after the birds until the vessel returns Jlome again.

\ Meanwhile the pigeons are fit and well and enjoying life. They were 'wiser than their companions. Perjiaps 'even wiser, than the six who went elsewhere. . •*' ’ * “