. Bird lore . lippines and neighboring islands. They are rather slender animals, aboutthe size of a small cat. Besides the expansion of skin between the fore andhind limb, they have a smaller fold extending along the shoulder and frontsurface of the arm as far as the wrist, and another larger fold between thehind legs and embracing the tail. The toes of all the feet, too, are envelopedin the skin-fold up to their claws. The flying lemurs are said to sleep hang-ing to the branches with their heads down, like bats. When climbing aboutin search of the leaves and insects on which they feed, the pa
. Bird lore . lippines and neighboring islands. They are rather slender animals, aboutthe size of a small cat. Besides the expansion of skin between the fore andhind limb, they have a smaller fold extending along the shoulder and frontsurface of the arm as far as the wrist, and another larger fold between thehind legs and embracing the tail. The toes of all the feet, too, are envelopedin the skin-fold up to their claws. The flying lemurs are said to sleep hang-ing to the branches with their heads down, like bats. When climbing aboutin search of the leaves and insects on which they feed, the parachute mem-brane is tucked up against the sides of the body. When the membrane isexpanded the animal resembles a kite, and in this condition it has beenknown to traverse a distance of seventy yards at one glide, with a descent ofonly one yard in five. The flying lemurs are peculiar in many points of theirstructure, so that zoologists have found it difficult to give them a permanentplace in the SOOTY TERN HOVERINGPhotographed by F. M. C. This brief study of the wings and parachutes with which different animalsare provided leads us to an interesting conclusion. We see the same simplefunction, flight, performed by a variety of structures, which have only thecharacter of an expansion in common. In most cases the expansion consistsof the skin of the animal, but in birds it is made up of overlapping skin expansion, again, may be supported in a variety of ways — by thearms and legs in flying squirrels, by elongated fingers in the flying frogs, byboth elongated fingers and arms and legs in bats and pterodactyls, by elon-gated ribs in the flying lizards, and, lastly, by a specially developed branchingframework in the wings of insects. Nature thus attains the same simpleend by employing a variety of methods. She never grows monotonous, forher ingenuity and resources are alike infinite.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectorn
