birds' flight, and birds' wings. 59 



third or medius, have become immovably joined 

 together ; whilst the lower end of the third 

 finger has become reduced to a single tiny bone 

 buried beneath the skin ; so that at first sight 

 there appears to be but a thumb and one finger 

 on the hand. 



Along the hinder border of this hand, and 

 along the same region of the fore-arm, run a 

 number of large feathers — the quill or flight 

 feathers. These are divided into two series, 

 those of the hand being called the primaries, 

 those of the fore-arm, secondaries. On the form 

 and length of these quills depends largely the 

 nature and the power of the flight. 



Those of my readers who happen to be sports- 

 men or dwellers in the country will readily call 

 to mind some four quite distinct forms of flight. 

 The 12th of August or the 1st of September or 

 October will furnish them with many a vision of 

 the first kind — that of birds with heavy bodies 

 and short rounded wings. The whirr of wings 

 of a covey of partridges in full career is not 

 easily forgotten. One has but to shut one's eyes 

 and touch the spring of the proper compartment 

 of one's mental picture stores to revive, with a 

 vividness that cannot be equalled by the cine- 

 matograph, a whole series of scenes. Turnip- 

 fields and stubbles, dogs and beaters, the flash 

 and report of guns, and the call of frightened 

 birds that have just alighted into fresh cover. 

 And in this we have a lesson not easily effaced, 

 a lesson from which we derive two important 

 deductions : (1) That birds with short rounded 

 wings and heavy bodies fly rapidly; (2) drive 



