A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 'Rich and joyous ...The book's quiet optimism about our ability to change, and to learn to love small things passionately, will stay with me for a long time' Helen Macdonald 'Big-hearted and quietly gripping' Guardian 'I love Jon Day's writing and his birds. A marvellous, soaring account' Olivia Laing '[A] beautiful book about unbeautiful birds' Observer 'This is nature writing at its best' Financial Times 'Awash with historical and literary detail, and moving moments ... Wonderful' Telegraph 'Every page of this beautifully written book brought me pleasure' Charlotte Higgins 'A vivid evocation of a remarkable species and a rich working-class tradition. It's also a charming defence of a much-maligned bird, which will make any reader look at our cooing, waddling, junk-food-loving feathered friends very differently in future' Daily Mail 'Endlessly interesting and dazzlingly erudite, this wonderful book will make a home for itself in your heart' Prospect As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home. Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed. Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin. A book about the overlooked beauty of this species, and about what it means to dwell, Homing delves into the curious world of pigeon fancying, explores the scientific mysteries of animal homing, and traces the cultural, political and philosophical meanings of home. It is a book about the making of home and making for home: a book about why we return.

How migratory birds can navigate home from their wintering grounds to their breeding sites over hundreds and thousands of kilometres has been an admired mystery over more than a century. Profound advances towards a solution of this problem have been achieved with a model bird, the homing pigeon. This monograph summarizes our current knowledge about pigeon homing, about the birds' application of a sun compass and a magnetic compass, of a visual topographical map within a familiar area and -- most surprisingly -- of an olfactory map using atmospheric chemosignals as indicators of position in distant unfamiliar areas.

This book provides the first and only comprehensive description and detailed summary of the genetics, structure, function, mechanisms of action, evolution and engineering of homing endonucleases and inteins. These two unique protein superfamilies, which are tied together through their frequent fusion and coevolution, have generated considerable excitement for their fundamental, structural, and functional properties, their evolution as parasitic elements, and their widespread applications as gene targeting agents and as instruments for the generation of modified proteins and novel protein combinations.

"Homing pigeons have wonderful ability to return to their homes, which is made use of for messenger service as well as for sport, Remarkable records of endurance and speed have been made by such pigeons. Pigeons kept for messenger service or racing should be carefully bred from a line of record performers. In selecting birds for a race or flight only those in prime condition and perfect feather development especially in wings should be used. Thorough training is an essential is as breeding in the successful management of homing pigeons. Only a little training should be given at a time and this thoroughly learned before longer flights are attempted. The distance that pigeons will fly in one day depends on the weather as well as on their breeding. Yong birds in good weather will fly about 300 miles in from seven to nine hours and flights of 600 miles in one day have been made by old birds. Squabs are raised only during the natural breeding season, in the spring. Matings are made about February 1 and broken up about June 1, the males and females being kept separate during the rest of the year." -- p. ii

Homing phenomena must be considered an important aspect of animal behaviour on account of their frequent occurrence, their survival value, and the variety of the mechanisms involved. Many species regularly rely on their ability to home or reach other familiar sites, but how they manage to do this is often uncertain. In many cases the goal is attained in the absence of any sensory contact, by mechanisms of indirect orientation whose complexity and sophistication have for a long time challenged the skill and patience of many researchers. A series of problems of increasing difficulty have to be overcome; researchers have to discover the nature of orienting cues, the sensory windows involved, the role of inherited and acquired information, and, eventually, how the central mechanisms process information and control motory responses. Naturally, this book emphasizes targets achieved rather than areas unexplored and mysteries unsolved. Even so, the reader will quickly realize that our knowledge of phenomena and mechanisms has progressed to different degrees in different animal groups, ranging from the mere description of homing behaviour to a satisfactory insight into some underlying mechanisms. In the last few dacades there have been promising developments in the study of animal homing, since new approaches have been tried out, and new species and groups have been investigated. Despite this, homing phenomena have not recently been the object of exhaustive reviews and there is a tendency for them to be neglected in general treatises on animal behaviour.

First published in 1988: This comprehensive set is crucial to the basic understanding of the immune system and is an essential component of the design and implementation of improved immunization strategies. Contains authoritative reviews of cell migration research and addresses the is-sues of lymphocyte recirculation leading to inductive interactions, and the subsequent migration and homing of effector cells generated from these responses. Systemic migration of cells from the central and peripheral lymphoid organs, the dichotomy of behavior between systemic and mucosal lymphoid cell pools, and explanations sought for mechanisms mediating selectivity of migration and homing are covered. This set is of interest to problem oriented scientists.

'The Homing Pigeon' is an informative guide to the world of messenger pigeons compiled by the United States Army Signal Corps and War Department. These birds, selectively bred for their innate homing ability, were used for centuries to carry messages before the advent of telephones. This comprehensive volume includes detailed descriptions of the bird's physical characteristics, care, breeding, and training, as well as information on diseases and medicines.