THE EIGHT KINDS OF FLIGHT.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.")
Ste,—In that storehouse of homely wisdom, the distant original of Aesop and La Fontaine, the famous Panchatantra, a wise and experienced crow named Laghu-patanaka discourses of the eight kinds of flight. He enumerates them thus: It) the combined (or complete) flight, (2) the flight forwards, gl) the great flight, (4) the flight downwards, (5) the wheel, (6) the oblique flight, (7) the high flight, and (6) "the eighth flight, called light." As his name siguifim, Laghu-patanaka was himself a master of the eighth variety. Amon your readers are, I know, many human birds; it may amuse them to identify the sorts of flight catalogued by the old Hindu fabulist, evidently a close observer of the manners and customs of his winged fellow-creatures.
An airman of my acquaintance conjectures that the complete light means flight aLfell speed, with throttle wide open. Flight forward is obvious, end flight downwards is no doubt a " vol plane." The "wheel" is probably looping. The oblique flight implies artistic " banking." The high flight and the great flight ere no doubt varieties of long-distance flying. But what is "the eighth flight, called light"? Is it some ultimate mystery of the art, not yet mastered by flying men?-1 am, Sir, &c., II. S. T.
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