THROUGH THE YEAR 95 



Once it is well launched and driving through the 

 air, the body by its own momentum carries forward 

 the bird between the wing strokes. It would be 

 quite wrong to suppose that birds are light and small 

 because heavy ones would never be able to fly. I 

 doubt not the swan or the eagle could fly with power 

 were it twenty times, a hundred times, its present 

 weight, provided its wing area were large in pro- 

 portion. Weight, rightly shapen and adapted to 

 motion in the air, is no hindrance. 



Weight, well-adapted to motion through the air, 

 helps the flier not only to speed it helps him to 

 steer. The weak-flying insects, as the wood-white 

 butterfly and the carpet moths, cannot drive a 

 straight course because, for one thing, they have 

 not the stability that weight gives. As artificial 

 flight progresses weight will not long remain the 

 hindrance it is to-day. 



THE BIRD BUTTERFLY 



Easily is Iris, the purple emperor, supreme over 

 all English butterflies ! In the strength and ease 

 of his flight, in the shot splendour of his wings, he 

 has no rival. I have been looking for the emperor 

 for seasons past in the New Forest and elsewhere, 

 but I looked in vain till lately. On August 10, 

 however, I had one glimpse of a large butterfly 

 moving high up and quickly between two tall oaks 

 at a spot where I often used to see purple emperors. 

 From its flight and position I was almost satisfied 

 it must be an emperor. The silver-washed fritil- 



