[59] “On the Various Modes of Flight in relation to Aëronautics.” By the Author.--Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, March 1867.
[60] Nature and Art, November 1866, p. 173.
Before proceeding to a consideration of the graceful and, in some respects, mysterious evolutions of the denizens of the air, and the far-stretching pinions by which they are produced, it may not be out of place to say a few words in recapitulation regarding the extent and nature of the surfaces by which progression is secured on land and on or in the water. This is the more necessary, as the travelling-surfaces employed by animals in walking and swimming bear a certain, if not a fixed, relation to those employed by insects, bats, and birds in flying. On looking back, we are at once struck with the fact, remarkable in some respects, that the travelling-surfaces, whether feet, flippers, fins, or pinions, are, as a rule, increased in proportion to the tenuity of the medium on which they are destined to operate. In the ox (fig. 18, p. 37) we behold a ponderous body, slender extremities, and unusually small feet. The feet are slightly expanded in the otter (fig. 12, p. 34), and considerably so in the ornithorhynchus (fig. 11, p. 34). The travelling-area is augmented in the seal (fig. 14, p. 34; fig. 36, p. 74), penguin (figs. 46 and 47, pp. 91 and 94), sea-bear (fig. 37, p. 76), and turtle (fig. 44, p. 89). In the triton (fig. 45, p. 89) a huge swimming-tail is added to the feet--the tail becoming larger, and the extremities (anterior) diminishing, in the manatee (fig. 34, p. 73) and porpoise (fig. 33, p. 73), until we arrive at the fish (fig. 30, p. 65), where not only the tail but _the lower half of the body_ is actively engaged in natation. Turning from the water to the air, we observe a remarkable modification in the huge pectoral fins of the flying-fish (fig. 51, p. 98), these enabling the creature to take enormous leaps, and serving as pseudo-pinions. Turning in like manner from the earth to the air, we encounter the immense tegumentary expansions of the flying-dragon (fig. 15, p. 35) and galeopithecus (fig. 16, p. 35), the floating or buoying area of which greatly exceeds that of some of the flying beetles.
