XT. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 157 



heron, the splash of your oars has disturbed, as he curves 

 back his neck, stretches out his legs behind, and settles 

 down steadily to his work. His wing is ample, broad, 

 round-ended, both arm and forearm being lengthened for 

 that steady sweep. Observe, if you get a chance, the 

 silent, stealthy flight of the owl, whose ample wing is 

 blunt rather than rounded, its under surface softly lined 

 with thick down. Hark ! there is the night-jar chur-r-r-ring 

 in the gloaming ; if we disturb him he will wheel round 

 us, alighting now and again. Listen to the knacking of 

 his wings as they strike together. You must often have 

 heard the pigeon thus clap his wings. Beneath all that 

 thick plumage of the fern-owl, and at the root of that 

 splendid tail of his, there is after all quite a little body, 

 which his long, broad-based, pointed wing carries swiftly 

 and surely, as he captures the evening insects in that 

 deeply-cleft, bristle-fringed mouth. 



Or does your holiday take you to the seaside ? Then 

 note the sailing flight of the sea-gulls with their narrowish, 

 pointed wings, and the skurry of the cormorant as he 

 pounds along just above the water's surface. He tries to 

 do two things with those narrow little wings, to fly and to 

 dive, and he suffers the consequences which await those 

 who are not content to do one thing really well. Perhaps 

 you may see a tern, the swallow of the sea, with its long, 

 sharp-pointed sickle wing, and its forked tail ; or a gannet 

 with its narrow, ribbon-like pinion, of the albatross type. 

 And you will not fail to observe that nature can effect the 

 same ends by different means. This long gannet- wing is 

 produced in a different way from that of the swift, by the 

 great lengthening of the arm and forearm, parts which 

 are exceedingly short in the long-feathered wing of the 

 swift. The primaries are not so exceedingly elongated, but 

 there are a score or more of secondaries, a number which is 



