Just how Dædalus incurred the displeasure of Minos does not seem to be very clearly stated by the early authorities. It appears that he was in some way entangled with the creation of a wooden cow, also with Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos, and even with the birth of the horrible Minotaur. Possibly it may have been Minos who this time became jealous. However that may be, the friendship which had existed between Dædalus and the king finally became strained, and the former was compelled to fly the country, which he did in a very literal way, as king Minos had seized all the ships on the coast of the island, cutting off, in consequence, the only means of escape. The architect, however, possessed much ingenuity and inventive genius of his own, even to a more marked degree than that manifested by the nephew he had dropped over the Athenian precipice, and with the aid of some feathers, a little wax, and Pasiphaë, who secretly contributed her assistance, he manufactured a pair of wings for himself, and another pair for his son, Icarus, who was with him at the time. Thus it will be seen that the first flying machines were invented by an architect. [Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF DÆDALUS AND ICARUS.] When the father and son started for Sicily, over the Ægean sea, like a pair of huge birds, Dædalus flew conservatively and cautiously, being careful not to rise too near the sun, where it was supposed by the ancients to be very hot; but Icarus, with the spirit of youth and the enjoyment of the exhilaration consequent upon the novelty of his method of locomotion, gave a deaf ear to the protests of his father, and, in emulation of Apollo, soared so high that the sun melted the wax in his wings. His feathers flew off, and down he dropped into the waves below. He was drowned, and that part of the Ægean sea into which he fell was afterward called the Icarian sea, in commemoration of this unfortunate accident, which Darwin has so well described in verse: “... With melting wax and loosened strings, Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings; Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air, With limbs distorted and dishevelled hair; His scattered plumage danced upon the wave, And sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave. O’er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed, And strewed with crimson moss his marble bed; Struck in their coral towers the passing bell, And wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell.”