THE WING. 



85 



/ ^f--" 



uiiites with him so perfectly that the martinet, tlie frigate-bird, sweeps 

 along at the rate of eighty leagues an hour, five or six times s^vifte^ 

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

 with no rival but the lishtninix. 



But even if our poor imitators had exactly imitated tlie wdng, no- 

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

 but not the internal atructure. 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. Tlie mystery, the 

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



