THE FAERY YEAR 



Hovering, he presents to the wind but a knifey edge 

 of wing ; and, for his body, this is shapen to part, 

 not arrest, the current. So the wonder is not how 

 he resists the wind, but how he does not drop when 

 thus poised, and moving his wings scarcely at all. 

 How can he float in the void, upheld only by the 

 light, elastic air a thousand times lighter than the 

 water beneath the cliff where he has his eyrie ? 



There is no deception for a true eye about the 

 hover the strokes of the wings during the stillest 

 part of the feat are very slight. This is not so with 

 the hover of many birds and insects. The gold 

 crests are frequent hoverers. I have watched them 

 lately hovering two and three times in a minute, to 

 take insect food slung beneath a twig which they 

 could not otherwise reach, and the strokes of the 

 gold crest's wings in such cases are for the relative 

 sizes of the two birds fuller than the wind hovers, 

 and, I think, more numerous. The gold crest indeed 

 can only poise itself in the air by quick full wing 

 strokes, and the exertion must be severe. 



Viewed without knowledge of the form and 

 mechanism of a wing, the strokes alike of red hawk, 

 gold crest, and hoverer fly appear simple up and 

 down movements of a slightly curved, or even flat, 

 instrument. But we know that the wing is really in 

 shape a kind of screw, which by no means rises 

 simply up and down when in action. It must pump 

 and work the air, draw it up, suck it down, cause 

 with each stroke that disturbance by which alone the 

 body of the flyer can be upheld. 

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