41 
a vani.slicil fauna 1 Speculation would run rampant witli such a 
theme, and having adduced only such facts as I can personally 
^ ouch lor, I will not seek to detain you with mere suppositions, 
perhaps as wiki and unproductive as Wretluim heath itself. 
VII. 
OX THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. 
Bv Thomas Southwell. 
Bead 30th November, 1S60. 
Ihe paper to which I beg your attention this evening is devoted 
to a subject of very great interest, but also one, the difficulty of 
which, reuilers it incumbent on me to offer an tipology for presum- 
ing to approach it ; I must also, for the same reason, beg your kind 
indulgence if occasionally I do not succeed in making myself so 
clearly understood as I should wish to do. 
In introducing the “ Flight of Birds ” to the Xorfolk and Norwich 
Naturalists’ Society, I can claim very little originality for what I 
have to say on the subject, I have simply endeavoured to put, in as 
condensed a form as possible, all the reliable information which has 
occiured to me in my readings on the subject of flight, interspersed 
with such observations as have come under my notice in those 
Ornithological pursuits which have formed rather the amusement 
than the scientilic study of my leisure hours j the result will, I 
trust, have some intei-est if not much originality. 
Ihe chief object of this paper is that of inducing the Members 
of this Society to give the phenomenon to which it refers, the 
attention it merits, to induce them to observe and record their 
observations, and I know of no branch of Natural Historv re(mrdin<» 
1 • 1 1 o 
winch there is such a paucity of original records, nor is there one 
perhaps, taking it in all its bearings, which leaves more problems 
to solve. 
Of all the faculties possessed by animals, the most remarkable, 
and until recently, the le;ist understood, is that of flight. Surely 
nothing but long fofuiliarity with this astonishing power could cause 
