BIRD CALLS A DOCTOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3601, 14 August 1912, Page 7

BIRD CALLS A DOCTOR.

CARRIER RIG FOX’S AIESSAGIFROM LONELY SCOTTISH ISLAND.

A bird has been the means of summoning a doctor to attend to an injured man, for on a recent Sunday night a fire signal and a carrier pigeon conveyed to the mainland' the news that an accident had taken place on Ailsa Craig.

Almost at the same moment as the look-out man at Girvan, some ten miles away, had noticed the flame —the usual signal that a doctor is required—the pigeon arrived with a message, stating that a man had been badly injured. .A boat with a doctor put off at once, and it was found that a laborer named Hugh Xawall, employed by the Ailsa Craig Granite Company, had fallen down a cliff, and had been seriously injured.

The man left the workmen’s- lints for the purpose of collecting birds’ eggs, and, as lie did not return b\ s Sunday morning, a search party was organised, and he was found unconscious at the bottom of a cliff, with his legs, badly injured. He bad lain where lie was found all night in a torrential rainstorm. Nowall was conveyed to Girvan an a boat, and then taken to the Glasgow "Western Infirmary. A number of carrier pigeons are kept and trained on. tlicf rock so that urgent messages may be sent to the mainland.