In those animals which fly, as bats (fig. 17, p. 36), insects (figs. 57 and 58, p. 124 and 125), and birds (figs. 59 and 60, p. 126), the travelling surfaces, because of the extreme tenuity of the air, are prodigiously augmented; these in many instances greatly exceeding the actual area of the body. While, therefore, the movements involved in walking, swimming, and flying are to be traced in the first instance to the shortening and lengthening of the muscular, elastic, and other tissues operating on the bones, and their peculiar articular surfaces; they are to be referred in the second instance to the extent and configuration of the travelling areas--these on all occasions being accurately adapted to the capacity and strength of the animal and the density of the medium on or in which it is intended to progress. Thus the land supplies the resistance, and affords the support necessary to prevent the small feet of land animals from sinking to dangerous depths, while the water, immensely less resisting, furnishes the peculiar medium requisite for buoying the fish, and for exposing, without danger and to most advantage, the large surface contained in its ponderous lashing tail,--the air, unseen and unfelt, furnishing that quickly yielding and subtle element in which the greatly expanded pinions of the insect, bat, and bird are made to vibrate with lightning rapidity, discoursing, as they do so, a soft and stirring music very delightful to the lover of nature.
The atmosphere, because of its great tenuity, mobility, and comparative imponderability, presents little resistance to bodies passing through it at low velocities. If, however, the speed be greatly accelerated, the passage of even an ordinary cane is sensibly impeded.
This comes of the action and reaction of matter, the resistance experienced varying according to the density of the atmosphere and the shape, extent, and velocity of the body acting upon it. While, therefore, scarcely any impediment is offered to the progress of an animal in motion, it is often exceedingly difficult to compress the air with sufficient rapidity and energy to convert it into a suitable fulcrum for securing the onward impetus. This arises from the fact that bodies moving in the air experience the _minimum of resistance_ and occasion the _maximum of displacement_. Another and very obvious difficulty is traceable to the great disparity in the weight of air as compared with any known solid, this in the case of water being nearly as 1000 to 1. According to the density of the medium so is its buoying or sustaining power.