BIRDS IN FLIGHT [Illustration: _Kingfisher and Young_] BIRDS IN FLIGHT BY W. P. PYCRAFT Zoological Department, British Museum (Natural History). Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Hon. Member of the American Ornithologists' Union. Associate of the Linnean Society. Member of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Author of "A History of Birds," "The Infancy of Animals," "The Courtship of Animals," "The Sea-shore," Etc., Etc., Etc. _Illustrated by_ ROLAND GREEN, F.Z.S. LONDON GAY & HANCOCK LIMITED 34 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.2. 1922 _All Rights Reserved._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Concerning Wings 1 What a wing is--The quill feathers and their function--The skeleton of the wing--The muscles of the wing--The great air-chambers of the body--The Bat's wing--The wing of flying Dragons--The wings of Dragon-flies and beetles. II. The First Bird 15 The ancestors of birds--The first known bird and its many remarkable features--The gradual evolution of the birds of to-day. III. The Sizes and Shapes of Wings and their relation to Flight 21 The evasiveness of flight--The size of the wing in relation to that of the body--Noisy flight--"Muffled" flight--The swoop of the sparrow-hawk--The "flighting" of ducks--The autumn gatherings of starlings and swallows--"Soaring" flights of storks and vultures--The wonderful "sailing" feats of the albatross--The "soaring" of the skylark--The "plunging" flight of the gannet, tern, and kingfisher. IV. Modes of Flight 35 The movements of the wing in flight--Marey's experiments--Stopping and turning movements--Alighting--"Taking off"--Hovering--The use of the tail in flight--The carriage of the neck in flight--And of the legs--The flight of petrels--The speed of flight--The height at which birds fly--Flight with burdens--Experiments on the sizes of the wing in relation to flight--Flight in "troops." V. Courtship Flights 53 The wing-play of black-game and grouse--The "musical ride" of the snipe--The "roding" of the woodcock--The musical flights of redshank and curlew--The "tumbling" of the lapwing--The raven's somersaults--The courting flight of the wood pigeon--The mannikin's "castanets"--Wings as lures--The strange pose of the sun-bittern--The "wooing" of the chaffinch and the grasshopper-warbler--Darwin and wing-displays--The wonderful wings of the argus-pheasant. VI. How to tell Birds on the Wing 71