THE WING. 



85 



i^'kr 



unites with him so perfectly tliat the martinet, the frigate-bird, sweeps 

 along at tlie rate of eighty leagues an hour, five or six times swifter 

 than our most rapid railway trains, outstripping the hurricane, and 

 with no rival but the liglitning. 



But even if our poor imitators had exactly imitated the wing, no- 

 thing would have been accomplished. They, then, had copied the form, 

 but not the internal ctructure. They thought that the bird's power of 

 ascension lay in its flight alone, forgetting the secret auxiliary which 

 nature conceals in the plumage and the bones. The mystery, the 

 true marvel lies in the faculty with which she endows the bird, of 



