THE BAT'S WING.--An examination of the bat's wing shows that the pectoral bone is very small and thin, thus proving that when the entire wing support is thrown upon the primary bone it must be large enough to enable it to carry out its functions. It is certainly not so made because it is a necessary shape which best adapts it for flying. If such were the case then nature erred in the case of the bat, and it made a mistake in the housefly's wing which has no such anterior enlargement to assist (?) it in flying. AN ABNORMAL SHAPE.--Another illustration is shown in Fig. 30, which has a deep concave directly behind the forward margin, as at A, so that when the plane is at an angle of about 22 degrees, a horizontal line, as B, passing back from the nose, touches the incurved surface of the plane at a point about one-third of its measurement back across the plane. _Fig. 30. One of the Monstrosities_ This form is an exact copy of the wing of an actual bird, but it belongs, not to the soaring, but to the class which depends on flapping wings, and as such it cannot be understood why it should be used for soaring machines, as all aeroplanes are. The foregoing instances of construction are cited to show how wildly the imagination will roam when it follows wrong ideals. THE TAIL AS A MONITOR.--The tendency of the center of pressure to change necessitates a correctional means, which is supplied in the tail of the machine, just as the tail of a kite serves to hold it at a correct angle with respect to the wind and the pull of the supporting string. CHAPTER VII ABNORMAL FLYING STUNTS AND SPEEDS "PEQUOD, a Frenchman, yesterday repeatedly performed the remarkable feat of flying with the machine upside down. This exhibition shows that the age of perfection has arrived in flying machines, and that stability is an accomplished fact."--News item. This is quoted to show how little the general public knows of the subject of aviation. It correctly represents the achievement of the aviator, and it probably voiced the sentiment of many scientific men, as well as of the great majority of aviators. A few days afterwards, the same newspaper published the following: "Lieutenant ----, while experimenting yesterday morning, met his death by the overturning of his machine at an altitude of 300 meters. Death was instantaneous, and the machine was completely destroyed." The machines used by the two men were of the same manufacture, as Pequod used a stock machine which was strongly braced to support the inverted weight, but otherwise it was not unlike the well known type of monoplane. Beachy has since repeated the experiment with a bi-plane, and it is a feat which has many imitators, and while those remarkable exhibitions are going on, one catastrophe follows the other with the same regularity as in the past. Let us consider this phase of flying. Are they of any value, and wherein do they teach anything that may be utilized,