29 JUNE 1912, Page 13

The Flight of Birds. By F. W. Headley. (Witherby and

Co. 5s. net.)—The title explains. Mr. Headley is a student and an original observer, and has some attractive chapters on the machinery of flight, wing formation, and so on. On the subject of migration and the problem of pace of flight he brings together many facts, but seems to neglect Gatke's observations in Heligo- land. Mr. Headley suggests that homing pigeons may attain, with a wind, the "splendid" velocity of sixty miles an hour. (lathe believed that the blue-throat on migration attained a velocity of 180 miles an hour.