1 82 Bird Comrades 



experiment, and is, therefore, a scientifically established 

 fact. It is easy enough to prove it in this way: Take a 

 dead bird that has been beheaded, pass a syringe into its 

 windpipe, tie it carefully so that the air cannot escape at 

 the sides, then blow the air down through the tube, and you 

 will be able to follow the passage of the air into the skin 

 and other parts of the body. Now, if you will cut off 

 one of the bones, you can detect the air passing from the 

 cut surface; and, more than that, as a scientific English 

 writer says, " if the experiment be made by using colored 

 fluid instead of air which is pumped in by a syringe - 

 the fluid can be seen to ooze from the ends of any bone or 

 muscle that has r?een cut across." 'Thus it is seen that 

 the whole body of the fowl is so constructed that it can 

 be pervaded with air. 



However, while all parts of the bird's organism com- 

 bine to produce the end in view, the special instruments 

 of flight are the wings. They are really the fore limbs of 

 the fowl, but differ in many respects from the fore limbs 

 of the mammals. They are under the control of muscles 

 of great comparative strength, as every one knows who 

 has ever been beaten by the wings of even an ordiriary 

 barnyard fowl, which has meagre powers of flight. What, 

 a powerful stroke a large hawk or an eagle must be able 

 to deliver! If man's arm muscles were as strong in pro- 

 portion, he might have some hope of one day navigating 

 the air on artificial wings, but it is due principally to this 

 muscular weakness that Darius Green has never been able 

 to make a success of his flying machine, and perhaps 



