CHAPTER IX. 



WEAVERS AND SPINNERS. 



W7E are all more or less interested in the progress 

 VV of aviation, and inclined to be immensely flattered 

 by what we are pleased to term " man's conquest of 

 the air ; " but we have only to watch the flight of any 

 bird as it wings its way serenely through a gale that 

 would instantly wreck the most perfect man-made flying 

 machine to realize how much we have yet to learn 

 before we can hope, even approximately, to approach 

 that perfection of poise, stability, and automatic adjust- 

 ment of balance by which alone our much-vaunted 

 " conquest " may attain to reality. Birds in the course 

 of their evolution through the countless years which 

 separate them from their reptilian ancestors have 

 become so perfectly adapted in structure for flight 

 through the air, and we are so accustomed to the sight 

 of their swift and graceful progress, that we are very 

 apt to look upon the flight of a bird as a matter of 

 course, and to marvel far more at a bird that cannot 

 fly, like the penguin, than to give a second thought to 

 the wonderful achievement of one that can fly. But 

 although the ancestors of our feathered friends of 

 to-day had learned a good deal more than the first 

 principles of flight long before man appeared on the 



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