Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1907 — The Flight of Birds. [ARTICLE]

The Flight of Birds.

The course of flight is a distinguishing characteristic of many birds. The grouse rises gradually while flying in a straight course; the woodcock rises to a height of several feet or even yards, then flies straight away; the cuckoo’s flight is also in a straight line, but peculiarly arrow-like, being graceful and silent, the long slender tall and body of the bird still further suggesting an arrow. A number of the birds, notably the brown thrasher and the song sparrow, progress in short flights, as from bush to bush, with a queer eccentric or bobbing motion, as if their flapping tails were a great hindrance. A Wilson snipe flies in a zigzag line, a goldfinch in long undulations or bounds. All of these and many other ways of flying can be indicated by dotted lines in the notebook, supplemented by such words as “sailing,” “rapid,” “slow,” “heavy” or “graceful” flight and “rapid,” “slow,” “silent” or “clattering” wing beats; the wings of the grouse hum, those of the woodcock and the mourning dove whistle.—St. Nicholas.