656 THE GREATEST FLYING CREATURE. 



performed by powerful wing beats, while the latter bird rarely flaps 

 its wings, but sails over the water with little apparent expenditure of 

 muscular power. In default of these birds the Wild Goose (Bernida 

 canadensis) and Turkey Buzzard may serve as representatives of differ- 

 ences in method and apparatus of flight. 



The goose, like his relative the swan, flies by means of the strokes 

 of his wings and carries a weight of !» pounds, with a wing area of 

 2.65 square feet and a muscle area of 8.84 square inches; the sailing 

 buzzard, with a weight of 5 pounds, has a wing area of 5.3 square feet 

 and a muscle area of 5.12 square inches. Thus the one bird has 0.3 

 square foot area of wing per pound of weight, while the other has 1.06 

 square feet per pound of weight. Or. if we wish to compare the area 

 of wing to the area of sternum, we may say that in the goose this 

 ratio is 13 to 1 and in the buzzard L49 to L. The minimum of wing 

 area, both positively and comparatively, is reached in the humming 

 birds, which may be typified by a species common in Barbados {Eulam- 

 pis chlorolsemus). This little bird, weighing 0.015 pound, has a wing 

 area of 0.026 square foot, and a muscle area of 0.33 square inch, a 

 ratio of 11.1 to L. while, if brought up to ounces, the wing area per 

 ounce would be but 0.76 square inch. 



These 1 differences are dwelt on at some length in the introduction to 

 this paper, where they are graphically expressed bymeansof diagrams 

 and compared with the weight, horsepower, and supporting area of 

 a flying machine. 



The buzzard may be compared to a racing yacht with small hull and 

 great spread of canvas; the humming bird, like a torpedo boat, is 

 mainly engine. 



Mammals may be practically left out of consideration in discussing 

 large flying creatures, for while many of the bats fly with the utmost 

 dexterity, none of them attain any considerable size, the largest of the 

 fruit bats [Pteropus edulis) weighing under 3 pounds and having a 

 spread of wing of 5 feet. Almost everyone is acquainted with the 

 rapid fluttering flight of small bats, and it need only be said that the 

 large species fly with measured -wing beats not unlike those of a crow. 



Such are some of the flying forms of to-day, and. with few exceptions, 

 the}^ seem not to have been exceeded by any creatures of the past. 

 ETarpagorniS) the extinct eagle of New r Zealand, was larger and more 

 powerful than any existing bird of prey, although the South American 

 harpy eagle is a near second;' 1 but the more notable exceptions were 

 the great flying reptiles, or pterodactyls, which abounded on the shores 

 of the inland sea that during Cretaceous time extended from the Gulf 

 of Mexico up the Mississippi Valley and northwesterly through Kansas. 

 And as the huge dinosaurs were the largest creatures that ever walked. 



a A specimen of this bird, Thrasaetus harpyia, in the National Zoological Park, 

 ,\ eighs I-'/, pounds. 



