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inclined planes or kites.

When an insect, a bat, or a bird is launched in space, its weight (from the tendency of all bodies to fall vertically downwards) presses upon the inclined planes or kites formed by the wings in such a manner as to become converted directly into a propelling, and indirectly into a buoying or supporting power. This can be proved by experiment, as I shall show subsequently. But for the share which the weight or mass of the flying creature takes in flight, the protracted journeys of birds of passage would be impossible. Some authorities are of opinion that birds even sleep upon the wing. Certain it is that the albatross, that prince of the feathered tribe, can sail about for a whole hour without once flapping his pinions. This can only be done in virtue of the weight of the bird acting upon the inclined planes or kites formed by the wings as stated.

The weight of the body plays an important part in walking and swimming, as well as in flying. A biped which advances by steps and not by leaps may be said to roll over its extremities,1 the foot of the extremity which happens to be upon the ground for the time forming the centre of a circle, the radius of which is described by the trunk in forward motion. In like manner the foot which is off the ground and swinging forward pendulum fashion in space, may be said to roll or rotate upon the trunk, the head of the femur forming the centre of a circle the radius of which is described by the advancing foot. A double rolling movement is thus established, the body rolling on the extremity the one instant, the extremity rolling on the trunk the next. During these movements the body rises and falls. The double rolling movement is necessary not only to the progression of bipeds, but also to that of quadrupeds. As the body cannot advance without the extremities, so the extremities cannot advance without the body. The double rolling movement is necessary to continuity of motion. If there was only one movement there would be dead points or halts in walking and running, similar to what occur in leaping. The continuity of movement necessary to progression in some bipeds (man for instance) is fur

1 This is also true of quadrupeds. It is the posterior part of the feet which is set down first.

ther secured by a pendulum movement in the arms as well as in the legs, the right arm swinging before the body when the right leg swings behind it, and the converse. The right leg and left arm advance simultaneously, and alternate with the left leg and right arm, which likewise advance together. This gives rise to a double twisting of the body at the shoulders and loins. The legs and arms when advancing move in curves, the convexities of the curves made by the right leg and left arm, which advance together when a step is being made, being directed outwards, and forming, when placed together, a more or less symmetrical ellipse. If the curves formed by the legs and arms respectively be united, they form waved lines which intersect at every step. This arises from the fact that the curves formed by the right and left legs are found alternately on either side of a given line, the same holding true of the right and left arms. Walking is consequently to be regarded as the result of a twisting diagonal movement in the trunk and in the extremities. Without this movement, the momentum acquired by the different portions of the moving mass could not be utilized. As the momentum acquired by animals in walking, swimming, and flying forms an important factor in those movements, it is necessary that we should have a just conception of the value to be attached to weight when in motion. In the horse when walking, the stride is something like five feet, in trotting ten feet, but in galloping eighteen or more feet. The stride is in fact determined by the speed acquired by the mass of the body of the horse; the momentum at which the mass is moving carrying the limbs forward.1

In the swimming of the fish, the body is thrown into double or figure-of-8 curves, as in the walking of the biped. The twisting of the body, and the continuity of movement which that twisting begets, reappear. The curves formed in the swimming

"According to Sainbell, the celebrated horse Eclipse, when galloping at liberty, and with its greatest speed, passed over the space of twenty-five feet at each stride, which he repeated 2 times in a second, being nearly four miles in six minutes and two seconds. The race-horse Flying Childers was computed to have passed over eighty-two feet and a half in a second, or nearly a mile in a minute."

of the fish are never less than two, a caudal and a cephalic one. They may and do exceed this number in the long-bodied fishes. The tail of the fish is made to vibrate pendulum fashion on either side of the spine, when it is lashed to and fro in the act of swimming. It is made to rotate upon one or more of the vertebræ of the spine, the vertebra or vertebræ forming the centre of a lemniscate, which is described by the caudal fin. There is, therefore, an obvious analogy between the tail of the fish and the extremity of the biped. This is proved by the conformation and swimming of the seal,-an animal in which the posterior extremities are modified to resemble the tail of the fish. In the swimming of the seal the hind legs are applied to the water by a sculling figure-of-8 motion, in the same manner as the tail of the fish. Similar remarks might be made with regard to the swimming of the whale, dugong, manatee, and porpoise, sea mammals, which still more closely resemble the fish in shape. The double curve into which the fish throws its body in swimming, and which gives continuity of motion, also supplies the requisite degree of steadiness. When the tail is lashed from side to side there is a tendency to produce a corresponding movement in the head, which is at once corrected by the complementary curve. Nor is this all; the cephalic curve, in conjunction with the water contained within it, forms the point d'appui for the caudal curve, and vice versa. When a fish swims, the anterior and posterior portions of its body (supposing it to be a shortbodied fish) form curves, the convexities of which are directed on opposite sides of a given line, as is the case in the extremities of the biped when walking. The mass of the fish, like the mass of the biped, when once set in motion, contributes to progression by augmenting the rate of speed. The velocity acquired by certain fishes is very great. A shark can gambol around the bows of a ship in full sail; and a sword-fish (such is the momentum acquired by it) has been known to thrust its tusk through the copper sheathing of a vessel, a layer of felt, four inches of deal, and fourteen inches of oaken plank.1

The wing of the bird does not materially differ from the

1 A portion of the timbers, etc., of one of Her Majesty's ships, having the

extremity of the biped or the tail of the fish. It is constructed on a similar plan, and acts on the same principle. The tail of the fish, the wing of the bird, and the extremity of the biped and quadruped, are screws structurally and functionally. In proof of this, compare the bones of the wing of a bird with the bones of the arm of a man, or those of the fore-leg of an elephant, or any other quadruped. In either case the bones are twisted upon themselves like the screw of an augur. The tail of the fish, the extremities of the biped and quadruped, and the wing of the bird, when moving, describe waved tracks. Thus the wing of the bird, when it is made to oscillate, is thrown into double or figure-of-8 curves, like the body of the fish. When, moreover, the wing ascends and descends to make the up and down strokes, it rotates within the facettes or depressions situated on the scapula and coracoid bones, precisely in the same way that the arm of a man rotates in the glenoid cavity, or the leg in the acetabular cavity in the act of walking. The ascent and descent of the wing in flying correspond to the steps made by the extremities in walking; the wing rotating upon the body of the bird during the down stroke, the body of the bird rotating on the wing during the up stroke. When the wing descends it describes a downward and forward curve, and elevates the body in an upward and forward curve. When the body descends, it describes a downward and forward curve, the wing being elevated in an upward and forward curve. The curves made by the wing and body in flight form, when united, waved lines, which intersect each other at every beat of the wing. The wing and the body act upon each other alternately (the one being active when the other is passive), and the descent of the wing is not more necessary to the elevation of the body than the descent of the body is to the elevation of the wing. It is thus that the weight of the flying animal is utilized, slip avoided, and continuity of movement secured.

As to the actual waste of tissue involved in walking, swimming, and flying, there is much discrepancy of opinion. It is tusk of a sword-fish imbedded in it, is to be seen in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

commonly believed that a bird exerts quite an enormous amount of power as compared with a fish; a fish exerting a much greater power than a land animal. This, there can be no doubt, is a popular delusion. A bird can fly for a whole day, a fish can swim for a whole day, and a man can walk for a whole day. If so, the bird requires no greater power than the fish, and the fish than the man. The speed of the bird as compared with that of the fish, or the speed of the fish as compared with that of the man, is no criterion of the power exerted. The speed is only partly traceable to the power. As has just been stated, it is due in a principal measure to the shape and size of the travelling surfaces, the density of the medium traversed, the resistance experienced to forward motion, and the part performed by the mass of the animal, when moving and acting upon its travelling surfaces. It is erroneous to suppose that a bird is stronger, weight for weight, than a fish, or a fish than a man. It is equally erroneous to assume that the exertions of a flying animal are herculean as compared with those of a walking or swimming animal. Observation and experiment incline me to believe just the opposite. A flying creature, when fairly launched in space (because of the part which weight plays in flight, and the little resistance experienced in forward motion), sweeps through the air with almost no exertion. This is proved by the sailing flight of the albatross, and by the fact that some insects can fly when two-thirds of their wing area have been removed. (This experiment is detailed further on.) These observations are calculated to show the grave necessity for studying the media. to be traversed; the fulcra which the media furnish, and the size, shape, and movements of the travelling surfaces. The travelling surfaces of animals, as has been already explained, furnish the levers by whose instrumentality the movements of walking, swimming, and flying are effected.

1 A flying creature exerts its greatest power when rising. The effort is of short duration, and inaugurates rather than perpetuates flight. If the volant animal can launch into space from a height, the preliminary effort may be dispensed with as in this case, the weight of the animal acting upon the inclined planes formed by the wings gets up the initial velocity.

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