BIRDS' FLIGHT, AND BIRDS' WINGS. 61 



all in the adjutant stork. These birds are said 

 to rise at first from 100 to 200 feet by the move- 

 ment of the wings ; and then, without the smallest 

 perceptible movement of the wings, sweep round 

 and round in elegant spirals with the wings and 

 tail fully spread. During the first part of each 

 turn of the spiral they sail with the wind, and in a 

 slightly downward direction ; at the end of this fall 

 they sweep round and face the wind which bears 

 them upward. They gain from ten to twenty 

 feet at each turn. When the course is towards 

 the left we are told the left wing is downward 

 and the right upward, but the two wings always 

 form one rigid rod, moving only as the body 

 moves. 



Thus they attain an elevation of from one to 

 two miles — the condor, one of the vultures, 

 sometimes rises six miles — and so restful does 

 this exercise appear to be that the birds are be- 

 lieved by some to go aloft to doze. The soaring 

 of the albatross has been most graphically de- 

 scribed by Captain Button. He says, " I have 

 sometimes watched narrowly one of these birds 

 sailing and wheeling about in all directions for 

 more than an hour without the slightest move- 

 ment of the wings, and have never witnessed any- 

 thing equal to the ease and grace of this bird as he 

 sweeps past, often within a few yards, every part 

 of his body perfectly motionless except the head 

 and eyes, which turn slowly and seem to take 

 notice of everything." 



Soaring birds in this country are now rare in- 

 deed. Only where the buzzard still holds his 

 own can we occasionally watch this beautiful 



