330 Lieut.-Col. C. D. Durnford on 



have a ratio of the lowest class in comparison with hirds 

 (see 'Annals/ Jan. 1906, p. 102) ; yet tliey are credited 

 by aeroplanists with sailing of a higher form than that of the 

 best-equipped sailing-birds — sailing, without even occasional 

 rowing assistance, at a slow speed, regardless of the direction 

 of the wind ! Such a feat — one utterly impossible for an 

 albatross *, an eagle, a vulture, kings of fliglit — is given to 

 this last poor dabbler in the art upon persistently contradicted 

 negative evidence, two im])ossible parallels, and the one 

 discredited proof. 



I have endeavoured, in the foregoing to show how 

 observers have been weighted and clogged hy the unique 

 system of handling an admittedly difficult question — 

 how a very able man, Prof. Mobius, years ago undertook 

 a research which required a very special knack of eyesight 

 in the observer. Probably the majority of men are without 

 this knack, and do not know it. Firmly believing what 

 I have endeavoured to sliow must have been the false 

 view presented to his retina, to be a true view, he wrote, 

 with the cleverness that belonged to him and the dog- 

 matism of the believer, the text of the faith which has guided 

 and misguided scientists for over a quarter of a century. His 

 reputation was, and is, deservedly great — so great that his 

 word was practically law, and it came about that if other 

 scientists possessed the knack of sight and differed from hiui 

 so much the worse for them ; they must be either ignored, 

 or explained away, any or no explanation being sufficient 

 for such a proper purpose. This is not a hard judiiment. 

 Anyone, who is free from the superstition, on reading an 

 ordinary aeroplane article will recognise its justice. 



Take a quite typical example of the common aeroplane 

 blindfold acceptance from writer to writer of palpable 

 impossibilities as guiding facts. In the article that we have 

 been quoting from we may note the following (p. 500) : 

 " The best estimate has been that an ordinary flight may 



ratio in birds, is impugQed by li. von Lendeufeld iu the volume that 

 we have been quoting from (Ann. Kep. Smith. Inst. 1904, p. li>y). The 

 figures of his example in proof will not, Iiowever, bear examination. 



/ v^33(3 

 Correctly calculated they strongly support Hartings ( -— ^ = 268, and 



\ \' o'-O 



not 4'03 as given by Von Lendeufeld as the ratio of the partridge J. 



* Some notes by Prof. Moseley (" Notes by a Naturalist on the 

 * Challoiiger,'" p. 571, 1874) upon the small amount of true soaring 

 performed even by the albatross are instructive. Our eyesight misleads 

 us airain in this matter. 



