(if) 4 THE GREATEST FLYING CREATURE. 



The curve (Plate Y) shows the same facts in a graphic form, and they 

 seem to me to deserve a fuller explanation than has yet been given to 

 them. 



I now invite the reader's attention to Mr. Lucas's interesting paper. 



S. P. Laxgley. 



THE GREATEST FLYING CREATURE, THE GREAT PTERODACTYL 

 ORNITHOSTOMA. 



By F. A. Lucas, 



/ nited States National Musi "m. 



No one animal combines all the best features of weight, power, and 

 wing area needed in a flying machine, for those with the greatest ex- 

 panse of wing are by no means the heaviest and strongest, while the 

 most powerful birds are not those of the longest sustained flight or 

 those which fly to the best advantage if considered from an economical 

 standpoint. The Frigate Bird, which is perhaps the bird of all others 

 most at home in the air. lacks carrying capacity, being so far as mere 

 muscle goes comparatively weak, sailing by skill and not by strength. 

 Birds of prey, on the other hand, which can carry away a quarry of 

 very nearly their own weight, fly when they do this by labored strokes 

 of their powerful pinions, with an apparent expenditure of considera- 

 ble power, sailing or soaring only when not encumbered by extra 

 weight. 



The Albatross, which has a maximum weight of is pounds and a 

 spread of wing of 11 feet (> inches, is the most notable example we 

 have of long sustained flight in a heavy bird, 8 and it is the more 

 remarkable from the fact that as the wing is extremely narrow its 

 area is very small, not exceeding 7 square feet. The surplus lifting 

 power of this bird is quite small, since the wing muscles on whose 

 area we must base our estimate of the amount of force exercised in 

 flight are comparatively small. Both the Albatross and Frigate Bird, 

 however, are of double interest from the very fact of their great ex- 

 tent of wing and small amount of muscle, since they thus throw some 

 light on the que -'ion of the length of wing that may be manipulated 

 with a given force. 



■• Sailors sometimes catch an Albatross, fasten t<> it a tag bearing the name of the 

 -.hip. .late nf capture, latitude ami longitude, and then release the bird. A specimen 

 thus tagged and subsequently taken by another ship is preserved in the museum of 

 Brown University, showing that in twelve days it had traversed a distance "fat least 

 3,150 miles, probably more, since the Albatross rarely Hies in a direel line. 



