How should one describe the wing of a bird, as one sees 

 it m flight ? 



The Dictionary, obscure and inaccurate as Dictionaries 

 usually are, defines a wing as " the organ of a bird, or other 

 animal, or insect, by which it flies — any side-piece." Might 

 not the impression one gathers of a wing, during flight, be 

 defined as of a lateral extension of the body, presenting a 

 relatively large surface, but having no appreciable thickness ? 

 That surface, examined in a dead bird, is seen to be formed, 

 for the most part, of a series of parallel, tapering, elastic rods, 

 fringed with an innumerable series of smaller, similar, but 

 much shorter rods, closely packed, and linked together by 

 some invisible means to form an elastic web ? These we 

 caU the " quill," or "flight-feathers." The rest of the wing, 

 and the body itself, is clothed with precisely similar structures, 

 differing only in their smaller size. We call them " feathers " 

 commonly, without realizing that they are the " Hall-mark " 

 of the bird, for no other creature has ever been similarly 

 clothed. 



These quill-feathers play such a tremendously important 

 part in flight that their arrangement and relation to the 

 underljdng skeleton mu^t be carefully examined by all who 

 would understand the flight of birds. To begin with, then, 

 note that they are so arranged as to overlap one another, the 

 free edges of the quills facing the outer edge of the wing. 



