THE BIRD IN THE AIR. 91 



blue water of the bay. For nearly a minute he held himself 

 as stationary as if suspended on a wire, hovering with head 

 bent down, wings partly flexed, and his long forked tail dipped 

 almost at right angles to the body and spread so wide that it 

 looked nearly square across the end a position in which the 

 forces that naturally would have borne him ahead were bal- 

 anced by others that held him back. 



Stopping is accomplished by both wings and tail. A bird in 

 swift flight, wishing to check his course immediately, spreads 

 his tail to the fullest extent, throws up his wings, and drops 

 as nearly vertically as his momentum will permit him. Watch 

 pigeons and you will observe that they are experts in this 

 method of alighting. But commonly a bird merely draws in 

 his wings, spreads his tail more or less to check his motion, 

 and comes gliding down on an easy slant. 



Aside from these necessary motions the bird has a number 

 of tricks no more a part of flying than riding on one wheel is a 

 part of bicycling, but very pretty sport. We sometimes see a 

 bird glide until his momentum is gone, when, with a stroke or 

 two, he sends himself forward and rests on his wings till the 

 new impulse is exhausted. 



Sometimes birds play with the wind, mounting by merely 

 turning to face it, and then sliding down the breeze a short 

 distance, when they turn once more to the wind and*let it raise 

 them. Again one bird, the tumbler pigeon, is noted for its 

 habit of falling backward in mid-air, a habit thought by some 

 to have its root in the method by which wild pigeons some- 

 times escape the onslaught of a hawk. 



But the most beautiful flight trick of all is the common one 

 of soaring. No one knows all about it, and yet it is easy to see 

 that under most conditions the bird is playing with a breeze, 

 letting himself be borne up as he faces it, gliding downward a 



