This last circumstance is deserving of attention, the more especially as it seems to constitute the principal difference between a living flying thing and an aërial machine. If a flying-machine was constructed in accordance with the principles which we behold in nature, the weight and the propelling power of the machine would be made to act upon the sustaining and propelling surfaces, whatever shape they assumed, and these in turn would be made to operate upon the air, and _vice versâ_. In the aërial machine, as far as yet devised, there is no sympathy between the weight to be elevated and the lifting power, whilst in natural flight the wings and the weight of the flying creature act in concert and reciprocate; the wings elevating the body the one instant, the body by its fall elevating the wings the next. When the wings elevate the body they are active, the body being passive. When the body elevates the wings it is active, the wings being passive. The force residing in the wings, and the force residing in the body (weight is a force when launched in space and free to fall in a vertical direction) cause the mass of the volant animal to oscillate vertically on either side of an imaginary line--this line corresponding to the path of the insect, bat, or bird in the air. While the wings and body act and react upon each other, the wings, body, and air likewise act and react upon each other. In the flight of insects, bats, and birds, _weight_ is to be regarded as an independent moving power, this being made to act upon the oblique surfaces presented by the wings in conjunction with the power expended by the animal--the latter being, by this arrangement, conserved to a remarkable extent. Weight, assisted by the elastic ligaments or springs, which recover all wings in flexion, is to be regarded as the mechanical expedient resorted to by nature in supplementing the efforts of all flying things.[63] Without this, flight would be of short duration, laboured, and uncertain, and the almost miraculous journeys at present performed by the denizens of the air impossible.
[63] Weight, as is well known, is the sole moving power in the clock--the pendulum being used merely to regulate the movements produced by the descent of the leads. In watches, the onus of motion is thrown upon a _spiral spring_; and it is worthy of remark that the mechanician has seized upon, and ingeniously utilized, two forces largely employed in the animal kingdom.