AVIATION DURING BATTLES. Since the battle of the Somme, the British and French aviation has taken, day by day, a more and more direct part in the actual fighting. The Germans, whose aircraft were originally employed only for scouting purposes, were not slow in imitating them. During all the recent Franco-British offensives, machines of all types were seen flying down as low as one hundred and even fifty yards above the enemy’s terrain, raking the reserve lines with machine-gun fire, shooting down the gunners of exposed batteries, surprising reinforcements on the march or coming up in troop trains, and spreading disorder everywhere. In Artois, a moving train attacked by three British machines was wrecked with great loss to its crowded freight of infantry. It is a pleasure for a Frenchman to pay to the British aviators the tribute well earned by their valour and enterprise. Sportsmen that they are, the English from the very first have taken to aviation as a sport, and have given themselves to it heart and soul. The results they have achieved are wonderful. They might perhaps have accomplished feats equally brilliant with smaller losses; nevertheless we cannot but admire the high courage of their young men, who, scorning death, have bent all their energies to achieve success. The preceding brief summary of the uses of aviation in the present war justifies what we wrote at the beginning, viz., the side that has the uncontested supremacy in the air, the side that has done away with the adversary’s aviation, will be very near the final victory. But in order to safely and rapidly reach this result, the Americans should, in the organization of their flying corps, consent, at least in the beginning, to make a sacrifice of their pride as inventors. It will be absolutely necessary for them to commence the fight in the air with none but planes already successfully tested at the front in the various branches of the aërial service. It matters little what types they select from among the best now in use by the French, British, Italians, and even by the Germans; the important point is the achievement of swift and sure results, and these can be obtained only with such aircraft as have proved their worth in actual warfare. Otherwise, the Americans would expose themselves, at the start, to the useless loss of numerous planes, and the sacrifice of many precious lives. They would delay for several months the perfection of an arm which is expected to give prompt and decisive results on the Western Front, and thus cause as great a disappointment to the American as to the Allied Armies. The adoption of such a policy would not, however, prevent the American engineers from improving progressively upon their original aircraft. During the last three years airplanes have been continually modified and improved. Still greater improvements may be expected in the future, and in this line a vast field remains open to the American genius.