A PREFACE AND AN APOLOGY. 
Y apology for writing this book is contained 
in what follows :— 
In the year 18 57-58 I offered a reward 
of $1,000 to any inventor able to produce 
an adtual flying machine. This offer was made through 
the columns of a leading fcientific journal in America, 
and kept open for a year, but failed of its objedf. Some 
time after this, while living abroad in an old city of the 
Continent fltuated by the fea, famed for its ancient hiflory 
and modern brandies, I fet myfelf ferioufly to the tafk of 
carefully watching the motions of birds in the air, with 
the view of afcertaining by a&ual obfervation of their 
wing-movements in what the fecret of flying confided. 
Thefe obfervations were kept up by me for many years— 
for fully ten or eleven—with little or no intermiflion, 
when they were fuddenly difcontinued. Why my work 
was recommenced, and why thefe pages have been 
written, I will now proceed to tell, though fully aware of 
the ridicule it muff neceffarily expofe me to from that 
