Fig. 6. Operating track, covered with corrugated indiarubber, and marked with transverse lines 12 inches apart. Each line is numbered, for the purpose of more readily ascertaining the length of the animal's stride. On one side of the track, and opposite to the battery of cameras, a white background is erected at a suitable angle.
The camera in which any one negative in a series of exposures is made is designated on that negative by the parallel direction of the vertical stake with the horizontal line extending to the corresponding number immediately opposite. The discriminating number of each series is marked on each negative by the large numbers—229, for example—which are changed for each movement illustrated.
For recording the successive attitudes of animals not under control, an apparatus is used, comprising a cylinder, around which are spirally arranged a number of pins; upon the cylinder being set in motion through gearing connected with a spring or weight, these pins are consecutively brought into contact with a corresponding number of metal springs; a succession of electric currents are thereby created which act through their respective magnets attached to the electro-exposors at regulated intervals of time. The cylinder is put in motion either by bringing it into gearing with other parts of the apparatus already in motion; or by releasing a break with the hand, or by the action of some object at a distance by means of an electric current.
This apparatus is principally used for illustrating the flight of birds, the motions of small animals, and changes of position without continuous progressive motion, such as occur during wrestling or turning a summersault; when the cameras are directed towards the place where the movements are being executed.
The boxes outside the studio (Fig. 5) contain cameras and electro-exposors for obtaining synchronous exposures of a moving object from different points of view.
The following analyses of some of the movements investigated by the aid of electro-photographic exposures, are repeated by permission of the President and Council from a paper read by the author before the Royal Society, and are rendered more perfectly intelligible by the reproductions of the actual motions projected on a screen through the zoopraxiscope.
The Walk.
Selecting the horse for the purposes of illustration, we find that during his slowest progressive movement—the walk—he has always two, and, for a varying period, three feet on the ground at once. With a fast walking horse the time of support upon three feet is exceedingly brief; while during a very slow walk all four feet are occasionally on the ground at the same instant.