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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



to weight ratio. ^ Now flying-fish have a ratio of the lowest class 

 in comparison with birds (see 'Annals,' Jan. 1906, p. 162); yet 

 they are credited by aeroplanists with sailing of a higher form than 

 that of the best-equipped sailing birds — sailing, without even 

 occasional rowing assistance, at a slow speed, regardless of the 

 direction of the wind ! Such a feat — one utterly impossible for 

 an albatross,^ an eagle, a vulture, kings of flight — is given to 

 this last poor dabbler in the art upon persistently contradicted 

 negative evidence, two impossible parallels, and the one discredited 



I have endeavored in the foregoing to show how observers have 

 been weighted and clogged by the unique system of handling an 

 admittedly difficult question — how a very able man, Prof. Mobius, 

 years ago undertook a research which required a very special knack 

 of eyesight in the observer. Probably the majority of men are 

 without this knack, and do not know it. Firmly believing what 

 I have endeavored to show must have been the false view pre- 

 sented to his retina, to be a true view, he wrote, with the cleverness 

 that belonged to him and the dogmatism of the believer, the text 

 of the faith which has guided and misguided scientists for over a 

 quarter of a century. His reputation was, and is, deservedly 

 great — so great that his word was practically law, and it came 

 about that if other scientists possessed the knack of sight and 

 differed from him so much the worse for them; they must be either 

 ignored, or explained away, any or no explanation being sufficient 

 for such a proper purpose. This is not a hard judgment. Any- 

 one, who is free from the superstition, on reading an ordinary 

 aeroplane article will recognize its justice. 



1 Harting's formula — which governs this ratio 

 V weight in grammes, 

 in birds, is impugned by R. von Lendenfeld in the volume that we have been 

 quoting from (Ann. Rep. Smith. Inst. 1904, p. 129). The figures of his ex- 



they strongly support Harting f^p= = 268, and not 4 03 as given by 

 Von Lendenfeld as the ratio of the partridge^. 



^ Some notes by Prof. Moseley (" Notes by a Naturalist on the 'Challenger," 

 p. 571, 1874) upon the small amount of true soaring performed even by the 



