Honey bee versus Racing Pigeon

A Pigeon fancier of Hamme, Prussia,
made a bet that a dozen bees liberated three
miles from their hive would reach it in better
time than a dozen pigeons would reach their
cote from the same distance.

The competitors
were given wing at Rynhern, a village
nearly a league from Hamme, and the first
bee finished a quarter of a minute in advance
of the first pigeon, three other bees reached
the goal before the second pigeon, the main
body of both detachments finished almost
simultaneously an instant of two later.

The bees, too, had been handicapped in the race,
having been rolled in flour before starting,
for the purposes of identification.
- A Botes

Posted:18-1-2008