Scouting is the object of the flight, and scouting implies, for the most part, keeping a weather eye open for suspicious craft, enemy battleships, cruisers, destroyers and enemy submarines, the latter more easily distinguishable from a height, when the bed of the sea in the more shallow portions can be read like an open book, sandbanks standing out most prominently from the surrounding azure blue. Target-registering, on the other hand, consists of following, or rather attempting to follow, a damnably perverse raft, on which a large target is lashed, at which the heavy guns of the Fleet are firing from a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles, and the observer wirelessing back the results of their attempts, also entering the same in his report. To the uninitiated this report would at first sight appear slightly less understandable than a Chinese love letter or a Greek play. It is divided into columns; first there is the time of the entry, next the height at which the machine was flying, the approximate position, and, last, the nature of the observation. For example: 11.55 a.m. 6000 feet. Lat. 90, long. 70:6. Large two-funneled steamers, apparently merchantmen, observed proceeding in a south-westerly direction. If the matter is of an urgent nature it is sent back to the Fleet immediately by wireless, surely the most valuable asset to aviation that exists, and without which aerial scouting and reconnaissance work would be almost useless. The apparatus is light and extremely compact, consisting of one or two Morse keys and an aerial. The range of action--that is to say, the distance that a message can be either sent or received--is not very great, but such as it is, is invaluable. In a word, wireless in the Navy is as near perfection as it is possible for a new science to be. The observer makes a sudden movement with his hand in a south-westerly direction. Far down on the distant horizon is the long black sleuth-like form of an enemy destroyer. The wireless is soon busy ticking the gladsome news to the Fleet, now far in the rear. More and yet more black shapes appear, and then our own destroyers come up, dashing through the sea, at well over thirty knots an hour, leaving a line of churning white foam in their track. The enemy catch sight of them and then turn north at full pelt, our own in hot pursuit, until for fear of floating mines--it is a favorite trick of the Hun sportsman, when pursued to drop mines behind him, in the hope that they will strike the enemy ships--our own destroyers come back crestfallen and downhearted. _En passant_ it may be said that a seaplane battle is very similar to a fight between two aeroplanes, though usually more slowly fought out, and hence longer in duration. Such feats as “looping” or sudden nose-dives are generally impossible.