meant the airship, for he almost simultaneously speaks of the passing of the old gas balloon, and when in 1907 _Punch_ published a design for a new penny piece "in accordance with Britannia's aerial ambitions," Britannia is shown in mid-air in what is apparently the car of an airship, certainly not the old "basket" of a balloon. If _Punch_ failed in 1908--the _annus mirabilis_ of the Conquest of the Air--to recognize the paramount claims of the Brothers Wright, it must be borne in mind that the notorious aversion from publicity shown by those pioneers, and the deliberate secrecy with which they had conducted their experiments, kept them for a while out of the limelight. Mr. Farman's exploits in the early months of 1908 are duly celebrated in the cartoon in which Icarus, watching a biplane, says: "Confound that fellow! I wish _I'd_ thought of that!" But though Mr. Farman's efforts were completely eclipsed by those of Orville Wright in America and Wilbur Wright at Le Mans in France, in September, October and December, _Punch_ only gradually awoke to the fact. The reference to Wilbur Wright on September 16 conveys no clear acknowledgment of his achievement. He is, however, by implication promoted to importance three weeks later when we read amongst various "Messages from the Dead" the statement of Icarus: "The word aeroplane is a monstrosity to Elysian ears, and the mere mention of W(ilbur) W(right) puts me in a wax. Anyhow, no sea can be called after a man with such a name." An allusion in the following week to Wilbur Wright's avoidance of the "snap-shooter" helps to explain how it came about that he never figured in a cartoon. M. Bleriot's first cross-Channel flight in 1909 made a prodigious stir, and _Punch_ chronicled it in the figure of "Winged Victory" landing on the cliffs at Dover. [Illustration: "S.O.S." PUNCH (to Mr. Marconi): "Many hearts bless you to-day, Sir. The world's debt to you grows fast."] Wireless telegraphy makes its _début_ in the pages of _Punch_ in 1894, when the verses "Hail, Columbia!" associate it with the name of Nikola Tesla, the electrician, born on the borders of Austria and Hungary, who migrated to the States in 1884. Five years later the Fairy Electricity, armed with wireless, gives warning to submarine cables and land telegraphs that she won't be able to keep them much longer. _Punch_ was here a previous prophet; but he showed a decidedly "intelligent anticipation" in his article on "Marconigrams" in January, 1902, where he predicted accurately enough some of the drawbacks involved in the tapping of messages by "receivers" other than those for which they were intended. The word "Marconigram"--in itself a tribute to the predominance of Signor Marconi's "system"--was then brand-new. _Punch's_ use of it antedates by a week the earliest reference quoted in Murray.