;j4: NUMBKR AN]> SHAPE OF REMIGES. 



extremes of the mode of flight result. The short, romicVwing confers n. 

 heavy, powerful, cutting flight, for short distiuices, with a whirring noise, 

 produced by quick vibrations of the wing : birds that ily thus are almost 

 always thickset and heavy. The long, pointed wing gives a light, airy, 

 skimming flight, iudetinitely prolonged, with little or no noise, as the wing 

 beats are more deliberate : birds of this style of wing are generally trim 

 and elegant. These, of course, are merely generalizations, mixed and ob- 

 scured in every , degree in actual bird-life. Thus the humming-bird, with 

 long pointed wings, whirs them fastest of all birds ; so fast that the eye can- 

 not follow the strokes, and merely perceives a mist on each side of the bird. 

 The coml)inatiou of a pointed with a somewliat concave shape of Aving is a 

 remarkably strong one ; it results in a rapid, vigorous, whi.'<tUii<j flight, as in 

 a pigeon or duck. An ample wing, as it is called, that is, one long as well 

 as broad, wdthout l)cing pointed, is seen in the herons ; it confers a slow and 

 somewhat lumbering, l)ut still strong, flight. The longest winged l)irds are 

 found among the swimmers, as albatrosses ; but here the extreme length is 

 hu-gely produced by the length of the humerus ; some land birds, as swallows, 

 swifts, humming-birds, and other tissirostral birds, would have a still longer 

 wing, were not the humerus extraordinarily short. The shortest wings 

 (among birds with perfect remiges), occur in tlie lowest swimmers, as among 

 the auks and divers, and in llie gallinaceous bird*. The various special 

 shapes of wings ai-e too numerous and too insensibly gradated to be men- 

 tioned here. The mechanics of oi'dinary flying are probably now under- 

 stood,* though the "way of an eagle in the air" was an enigma to the wise 

 man of old. But the sailing of some birds for an indetinite period through 

 the air, up as well as down, without visible motion of the wings, remains a 

 stumbling-block ; the flight of the turkey vulture is yet unexplained, I ven- 

 ture to aflirm. 



(b.) Tha number of VQnugcs ranges from sixteen, in the humming-bird, 

 to upwards of fifty, in the albatross. This statement is exclusive of the 

 penguins, in which there are no true remiges. The remiges subserve flight 

 in nearly all existing birds except these last, the ostriches and their allies, 

 and the great auk, jilca itiqtennin — if indeed this bird still lives. 



(c.) Of the ultdjje of remiges there is little to be said, they are, with few 

 exceptions, so uniform. They are the stiflest, strongest, most truly penna- 

 ceous (§4) of a bird's feathers ; they have no evident hyporhachis ( § 3, a) ; 

 they are generally lanceolate, that is, taper regularly and gradually to a 

 rounded point. Sometimes one or both webs are incused or attenuate 

 towards the end, that is, they narrow abruptly ; this is also called emarguia- 

 tion. (See fig. 110.) The tips of the remiges may 1)C squarely or obliquely 

 cut ofi', as it were, or nicked in various ways. Except in the case of a few 

 of the innermost remiges, their outer vexillum (§ o, a) is alwa3^s narrower 



*The student should not fail to consult, in this conucotiou, M. Marey's "Ijectures on tlie IHieuoniena of 

 Flight." ^inilhf^otiian lieport I'or 180il, p. 22;>. (Tran^latrd from Rtivim des Conrs Sckniijiijues.) 



