Flight of Certain Sea-Birds

Extract

“The article on this subject by E. A. Proctor in the English Mechanic, p. 347, opens up a question in which I have long felt deep interest, and, as I live by the seaside, I have spent many hours in watching the wonderful power of flight with which sea-gulls are provided. The moat remarkable exemplification of this power is the apparent ease with which a bird will remain perfectly steady in the air in the teeth of a gale. Some birds, such as kestrels and humming birds, are enabled to retain a constant position in the air by short and rapid strokes of the wings, but, in the case of a sea-gull remaining steady against a strong wind, no motion of the wing is apparent. I have often with a telescope watched sea-gulls under these circumstances at a distance of 40 or 50 yards, but I have never been able to detect the slightest movement of the nature of a flap given by the wings, which remain quite rigid.