70 
CHAPTER V. 
Flight. — Muscular power of Wings. — Peculiarity of, in different 
Birds. — Adapted to various Habits. — Rapidity of Motion and 
Rate of, how calculated. — Long continuance of Flight ac- 
counted for. — Migration, causes of. — Tendency of most Birds 
to wander at particular times. — Why seldom seen in the act of 
migrating. — Instinctive power of finding their way. 
TTAVING described the light and airy frame -work of birds 
intended to pass more or less of their time in the air ; 
and having shown how beautifully, in every particular, an 
all-wise Creator has fitted them for such a life, we are natu- 
rally led to follow them in their flight, and see how they are 
still further prepared to turn their lightness of form to the 
greatest advantage ; and, in pursuing this inquiry, the more 
shall we be constrained to acknowledge, that “ wondrous 
are the works of God, and that in wisdom he hath made 
them all, — giving unto the Stork in the heaven to know 
her appointed time, and the Turtle, and the Crane, and the 
Swallow, to observe the seasons for their coming.” No human 
ingenuity or skill could ever have devised so perfect an 
instrument as a bird’s wing for its intended purpose; so 
light, and yet so powerful; so spacious when spread out, and 
yet so compact, and gathered into so small a compass when 
not wanted. 
We may form some idea of the extraordinary strength of 
a bird, from knowing that the great muscle, which chiefly 
regulates the movements of its wing, weighs more than all 
the other muscles of its body put together, constituting not 
less than one sixth-part of the weight of the whole body; 
whereas, those of the human body are not one-hundredth 
part as large in proportion. 
Some birds have to seek their food on the wing, con- 
sisting of such very small insects, that many hundred must 
