[5] A portion of the timbers, etc., of one of Her Majesty’s ships, having the tusk of a sword-fish imbedded in it, is to be seen in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
The wing of the bird does not materially differ from the extremity of the biped or the tail of the fish. It is constructed on a similar plan, and acts on the same principle. The tail of the fish, the wing of the bird, and the extremity of the biped and quadruped, are screws structurally and functionally. In proof of this, compare the bones of the wing of a bird with the bones of the arm of a man, or those of the fore-leg of an elephant, or any other quadruped. In either case the bones are twisted upon themselves like the screw of an augur. The tail of the fish, the extremities of the biped and quadruped, and the wing of the bird, when moving, describe waved tracks. Thus the wing of the bird, when it is made to oscillate, is thrown into double or figure-of-8 curves, like the body of the fish. When, moreover, the wing ascends and descends to make the up and down strokes, it rotates within the _facettes_ or depressions situated on the scapula and coracoid bones, precisely in the same way that the arm of a man rotates in the glenoid cavity, or the leg in the acetabular cavity in the act of walking. The ascent and descent of the wing in flying correspond to the steps made by the extremities in walking; the wing rotating upon the body of the bird during the down stroke, the body of the bird rotating on the wing during the up stroke. When the wing descends it describes a downward and forward curve, and elevates the body in an upward and forward curve. When the body descends, it describes a downward and forward curve, the wing being elevated in an upward and forward curve. The curves made by the wing and body in flight form, when united, waved lines, which intersect each other at every beat of the wing. The wing and the body act upon each other alternately (the one being active when the other is passive), and the descent of the wing is not more necessary to the elevation of the body than the descent of the body is to the elevation of the wing. It is thus that the weight of the flying animal is utilized, slip avoided, and continuity of movement secured.