turn now to a survey of some of the more remarkable forms of 

 flight, beginning with that known as " soaring." 



This but few birds have mastered, and to-day it is rarely 

 to be seen in our islands, for eagles, falcons, and buzzards 

 are, unfortimately, only to be found in a few favoured 

 localities. Happily, however, one may yet realize the delight 

 of watching a soaring buzzard, or raven, among the hills of 

 Westmorland, or in parts of Cornwall and Wales. But to 

 see the past-masters in the art, one must seek the haunts of 

 peHcans, vultures, and adjutant storks. The last-named is 

 perhaps the finest performer of them aU. For the first 

 hundred feet or so he rises by rapid and powerful strokes of 

 the wings, and then, apparently without the sUghtest effort, 

 or the suspicion of a wing-beat, he sweeps round in great 

 spirals, gaining some ten or twenty feet with each g57ration, 

 the wings and tail aU the while being fully extended and the 

 primary feathers widely separated at their tips. During the 

 first part of every turn he is flying shghtly downward : at 

 the end of the descent he sweeps round and faces the wind, 

 which carries him upward. Round, round, he goes, mounting 

 ever higher and higher, until at last he attains a height of 

 perhaps two miles. 



The adjutant thus goes aloft apparently for the mere 

 delight the movement affords him. But not so with the 

 vulture, who is a close rival in this art. He soars for his very 



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