CHAPTER I 



Concerning Wings 



" Divinity within them breeding wings 

 wherewith to scorn the earth." 



Milton. 



What a wing is — ^The quill feathers and their funfction — The skeleton of the 

 wing — ^The muscles of the wing — ^The great air-chambers of the body — The bat's 

 wing — ^The wing of flying dragons — The wings of dragon-flies and beetles. 



THE flight of birds has always aroused man's envy and 

 stirred his imagination. David longed for the wings 

 of a dove : the writer of the Book of Proverbs tells us that 

 " the way of an eagle " surpasses his understanding. Icarus, 

 spurred on by dire necessity, actually, we are told, contrived 

 to fly — ^but his maiden effort ended in disaster ! To-day we 

 have, in a sense, succeeded where he failed. But only because 

 we have given up the idea of flight by personal effort, and 

 make our aerial journeys in a flying machine. 



That we owe much of our success to a study of the flight 

 of birds is common knowledge, but the machine which has 

 evolved as a consequence of this study pursues its way through 

 the air after a very diferent fashion from that of the birds, 

 for its vast body is thrust, or drawn, through the air by means 



