[99] Professor Wilson’s Sonnet, “A Cloud,” etc.
[100] “If the albatross desires to turn to the right he bends his head and tail slightly upwards, at the same time raising his left side and wing, and lowering the right in proportion to the sharpness of the curve he wishes to make, the wings being kept quite rigid the whole time. To such an extent does he do this, that in sweeping round, his wings are often pointed in a direction nearly perpendicular to the sea; and this position of the wings, more or less inclined to the horizon, is seen always and only when the bird is turning.”—“On some of the Birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean.” Ibis, 2d series, vol. i. 1865, p. 227.
[101] The heron is in the habit, when pursued by the falcon, of disgorging the contents of his crop in order to reduce his weight.
[102] The condor, on some occasions, attains an altitude of six miles.
[103] “Aërial Locomotion,” by F. H. Wenham.—World of Science, June 1867.
[104] Mr. Stringfellow stated that his machine occasionally left the wire, and was sustained by its superimposed planes alone.
[105] Report on the First Exhibition of the Aëronautical Society of Great Britain, held at the Crystal Palace, London, in June 1868, p. 10.
[106] Mons. Nadar, in a paper written in 1863, enters very fully into the subject of artificial flight, as performed by the aid of the screw. Liberal extracts are given from Nadar’s paper in Astra Castra, by Captain Hatton Turner. London, 1865, p. 340. To Turner’s handsome volume the reader is referred for much curious and interesting information on the subject of Aërostation.
[107] Borelli, De Motu Animalium. Sm. 4to, 2 vols. Romæ, 1680.
[108] De Motu Animalium, Lugduni Batavorum apud Petrum Vander. Anno MDCLXXXV. Tab. XIII. figure 2. (New edition.)