sary to flex or raise one wing or one side of the tail. Flight proper may be of two sorts, (1) by flapping the wings, and (2) by soaring. The former is the most familiar and is practised by all birds, while the latter is possible only for birds of large expanse of wing, such as vultures, eagles, gulls, etc.

In taking flight it is very important for the bird to "get a start," as we say; that is, to acquire some relative velocity, and to accomplish this we often see birds which are about to fly run along the ground for a few steps or flap along the surface of the water, while starting head toward the wind with wings properly spread accomplishes the same result. Rising into still air by flapping is very laborious work, and some heavy-bodied birds, as the loons, for instance, are utterly unable to take flight when confined within a small area.

When once in the air and fairly started in flight the wing action is far less laborious than at the start and the upward stroke is often relative to the body only and not necessarily a muscular effort. When this stroke is active, the individual feathers, as instantaneous photographs show us, are more or less separated to reduce the resistance of the air on the recovery. Most birds mingle flapping and straight sailing in various ways and when once on the wing flight is mainly a matter of presenting their sail area to the air currents in such a way as to gain the greatest benefit from them.

Soaring is flight in circles with set wings and without any visible muscular action on the part of the bird. In spite of this the bird is able to mount higher and higher in the air, gaining impetus enough on the flight with the wind to carry it above its initial altitude when returning on the other half of the circle against the wind. Many theories have been advanced to explain the "soaring bird," some of them purely fantastic. This method of flight is possible only in the presence of currents of air; the unequal velocity of air at different altitudes doubtless having much to do with it. It has been ascertained that the flexibility of the tips of the wing feathers of a bird renders soaring possible to it. Mr. Everett H. Bickley, after elaborate experiments, claims to have solved the riddle. "The flexibility of the wing feathers," he says, "act like the flap in a pump valve, which offers resistance to fluid motion in one direction and freedom in another."

Aeronauts naturally look to birds for suggestions in artificial flight. They have paid particular attention to the poise and flight of the herring-gull in arriving at the principles of aerial navigation. The cutting edge of the monoplane from which the machine obtains its lifting capacity corresponds with the cutting edge of a bird's wing, the edge in the case of the bird being composed of living muscle and bone. "The rear edges of the plane can be warped up and down in rough imitation of the twisting of a bird's wing." Professor Ernest Huebner, the distinguished German naturalist, in a series of experiments on the shores of the Baltic Sea, has made the discovery that birds "never cross the seas and oceans except on storm currents and sometimes on the storms themselves." Birds determine from the direction of the wind currents when to start in flight over sea. These currents have tremendous propulsive power and a sustained directness that

The

guides the bird to its destination. Huebner's investigations also demonstrated the fact that bird flight is not affected by temperature, snow or ice and that "only a sudden blizzard from an unknown direction, or a fog, compels the bird to seek refuge on islands or the nearest mainland." These facts have not been lost on aeronauts, and it is believed that the path of the storm will be found materially to assist_instead of interfering with aerial flight. methods of birds in attacking their prey have been copied by air-craft. Birds vary very much in wing power according to their method of flight; the humming-bird and pigeon being abundantly supplied with wing muscles to maintain their rapid strokes, while the frigate-bird, a notorious "sailer," is remarkably weak in muscular development. The speed of flying birds also varies greatly. The best flyers of which we have definite record are the carrier pigeons, which travel from 30 to 50 miles an hour, while an albatross, caught and tagged by sailors, was recaptured, according to Lucas, 12 days later, 3,150 miles distant. Lanchester, the English engineer, says that "no bird can fly more than 50 miles an hour by its own energy, and therefore that tremendous migrating speed is made only on the swiftest wings." A plover can fly at least 76 miles an hour between Nova Scotia and South America.

Our familiar small birds do not travel at anything like such a rate, but their endurance is very great, as we can realize in view of their migrations, which often reach from the northern United States to equatorial South America, while the small waders travel from one end of the hemisphere to the other. See MIGRATION.

Flying creatures occur among mammals, reptiles and fishes. The extinct pterodactyls were evidently experts on the wing, and some of them constituted the largest flying animals of which we have any record. Of mammals the bats are the only true flyers, the flying squirrels and lemurs having merely parachute-like expansions of skin on the sides of the body which when the legs are stretched out enable them to sail obliquely downward from the tree tops to the lower branches.

In the flying-fish (q.v.) there is an enormous development of the pectoral fins which simulate wings. Their flight, however, consists only of a short sail through the air on an impetus gained as they leap from the waves with the fins rigidly extended. Consult Marey, E. J., Vol des Oiseaux (Paris 1890); Roy, Chas. S., article "Flight" (in Newton's Dictionary of Birds,' 1896); Langley, S. P., The Greatest Flying Creature (Smithsonian Report 1901); Headley, The Flight of Birds' (London 1912); Mac Mechen and Dienstbach, 'Bird Flight and Aerial Navigation' (in the Century, Vol. LXXX, pp. 297–307).

FLIGHTLESS BIRDS. Certain birds are quite unable to fly, or fly very poorly, or use their wings only as paddles or balancers, or in extreme cases have lost not only the use of wings but the wings themselves have disappeared. Examples of this degeneration will be found treated of in the articles upon APTERYX; DODO; GAREFOWL; MOA; OSTRICH; PENGUIN; RATITE; SOLITAIRE.

FLINCH, a card game said to have had its origin in Kalamazoo, Mich., and to have been

invented by a man named Flinch. The game is played with a pack of 150 cards, numbered consecutively from 1 to 15, there being 10 cards of each numeral. All are of the same color; there are no hearts, diamonds, clubs or spades, and the court cards are, of course, also missing. The cards are shuffled and 10 cards are dealt to each player for his flinch pile, then 5 more to each to play with. Each player must place his flinch stack face up, with only the top card exposed. The other five cards are kept in hand, spread out like a fan to see the numbers. The object of the game is to get rid of the flinch pile, and whoever first succeeds wins the game. To this end the flinch pile must be played from whenever possible. When this is not done, the opponent will call "flinch" and the player will have to draw a card from the opponent's flinch pile and place it on the bottom of his own. In case two or more of the opponents call "flinch" at the same time, the negligent, player must draw a card from the pack. The game may be played by any number from two to eight. After shuffling, the entire pack is usually stacked up criss-cross into hands of five, to facilitate drawing new hands. The name is also applied to a somewhat similar game played with the ordinary pack of 52 cards.

FLINCK, Govaert, Dutch painter: b. Cleves, 25 Jan. 1615; d. Amsterdam, 2 Feb. 1660. At Amsterdam, where he took up his permanent residence, he became a pupil of Rembrandt, whose manner and technique he so closely imitated that he comes nearer to the master than any other of his pupils, with the exception of Eeckhout. He was much sought after as a portrait painter and has also left many religious pictures and a few genres, such as 'Die Wachstube,' which is equally Rembrandtesque in subject, conception and treatment.

FLINDERS, Matthew, English navigator: b. Donington, Lincolnshire, England, 10 March 1774; d. London, 19 July 1814. He did much toward mapping out the coastline of Australia. In his first voyage of discovery he sailed in 1795 from Port Jackson and skirting the southeast coast reached Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania. In a subsequent voyage of discovery, on which he was dispatched by the British government with but poor equipment, he sailed along the south coast to Cape Leeuwin and the bay which now bears his name. He next explored the east coast of Australia, from Port Stephens to Cape Palmentone, threaded the formidable Barrier Reefs and coasted the Gulf of Carpentaria. Then turning back he made for Europe by way of Sydney. He was shipwrecked on this voyage and detained by the French in Isle de France for seven years. From the effects of this imprisonment he never recovered. On his arrival home he published 'A History of Terra Australis. The coast of South Australia was long called after him Flinders Land. His name is still attached to the southernmost county in Eyre Peninsula and to Flinders Island off that coast; to the Flinders Range in South Australia, rising near the head of Spencer Gulf and running north (highest peaks, 3,100 feet); also to a town in Victoria, 61 miles southeast of Melbourne. sult Life by Thynne (1896).

Con

FLINDERS-PETRIE, William M. See PETRIE. WILLIAM MATTHEW FLINDERS.

FLINDERSIA (named after Capt. Matthew Flinders), a genus of trees of the order Meliacea, allied to the mahogany, to which, however, it is generally inferior. The trees

of this genus are tall, with a correspondingly great diameter, and furnish large quantities of valuable timber. F. australis, the Queensland ash, is used in Australia for staves, etc.; F. oxleyana is a hard-wood tree, yielding excellent material for cabinet-work and also furnishing a yellow dye. The wood of F. greavesii is used in house-building, for which it is well adapted by its durability.

FLING, Fred Morrow, American historian: b. Portland, Me., 1860. He was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1883 and received the degree of D.Ph. at the University of Leipzig. Since 1891 he has been professor of European history in the University of Nebraska. He founded the Association of the Nebraska Teachers of History in 1897 and is a member of the American Historical Association and of the Société de la Revolution Française. He was one of the 100 electors to the Hall of Fame. He published 'Outline of Historical Method' (1898); (Studies in Greek Civilization' (1898); A Source Book of Greek History (1907); History of France) (1907); (Source Studies on the French Revolution' (1907); The Youth of Mirabeau (1908); (Source Problems on the French Revolution' (1913).

FLINT, Albert Stowell, American astronomer: b. Salem, Mass., 1853. He was graduated at Harvard University in 1875 and received the degree of A.M. at the University of Cincinnati in 1880. In 1881-83 and again in 1888-89 he was computor of the United States Naval Observatory and in 1883-88 was assistant to the United States Transit of Venus Commission. From 1889 to 1904 he was assistant astronomer of the Washburn Observatory at the University of Wisconsin, and in the latter year was appointed astronomer. He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He published 'Meridian Observations for Stellar Parallax' (Vol. IX, Publications of Washburn Observatory, 1902).

FLINT, Austin, American physician: b. Petersham, Mass., 30 Oct. 1812; d. New York, 13 March 1886. He was graduated at the medical department of Harvard College in 1833. After practising in Northampton, Mass., Boston and Buffalo, where he established the Buffalo Medical Journal in 1846, he was one of the founders and for six years a professor of the Buffalo Medical College. He was a professor in Louisville University 1852-56; professor of pathology in the Long Island College Hospital in 1861-68; president of the New York Academy of Medicine in 1872-75, and of the American Medical Association in 1884. He was the author of numerous textbooks, clinical reports and medical papers. Consult his biography, by Carpenter (New York 1886).

FLINT, Austin, American physician, son of the preceding: b. Northampton, Mass., 28 March 1836; d. New York, 23 Sept. 1915. He was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia 1857. For the two years following, he combined the duties of editor of the Buffalo Medical Journal, surgeon of Buffalo City Hos

pital and professor of physiology and microscopical anatomy at the University of Buffalo. He then set up a practise in New York city, and occupied the chair of physiology at the New York Medical College. He filled a similar position at the New Orleans Medical College (1860). After a year of study in Europe, he returned to the United States and taught physiology and microscopic anatomy at Bellevue Hospital, resigning in 1898 to accept the professorship of physiology at Cornell University Medical College (New York city). Dr. Flint's researches in the function of the liver were significant. He demonstrated the separation of the cholestrin from the blood by the liver, and its final conversion into "stercorin," the factor determining the odor of the feces. In 1874 he was appointed surgeon-general of New York State. He wrote The Physiology of Man' (1888); Chemical Examinations of Urine in Diseases' (6 eds., 1870-84); 'Effects of Severe and Protracted Muscular Exercises' (1871); 'Source of Muscular Power' (1878); 'Textbook of Human Physiology) (1875); 'Experiments Regarding a New Function of the Liver' (1862); The Physiology of the Nervous System (1872); Mechanism of Reflex Nervous Action in Normal Respiration' (1874); 'The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus (1884); 'Chemical Examination of the Urine in Disease' (1893); 'Stercorin and Cholesteræmia' (1897); Handbook of Physiology' (1905).

FLINT, Charles Ranlett, American merchant: b. Thomaston, Me., 1850. He was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, where he was graduated in 1868. He became a partner in the firms of Gilchrist, Flint and Company, and W. R. Grace and Company, engaged in South American trade. He was appointed consul of Chile at New York in 1879, retaining the position for two years, and later being appointed consul-general of Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the United States. In 1890 he was a delegate to the International Conference of American Republics. In 1895 he supplied a war fleet for Brazil and built torpedo boats and submarines for Russia. He established the Coast Clipper Line in 1896 and in 1898 negotiated abroad for the purchase of warships for the navy of the United States. He also organized several corporations, including the company controlling the street railway system of Syracuse.

FLINT, Joseph Marshall, American surgeon: b. Chicago 1873. He was educated at Princeton and Chicago universities, being graduated from the latter in 1895. He was graduated in medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1900, went abroad and studied at the universities of Leipzig, Vienna, Bonn and Munich. In 1897 he became assistant in anatomy and in 1900 associate at the University of Chicago. He went as assistant to the Johns Hopkins Medical Commission to the Philippines in 1901. From 1901 to 1907 he was professor of anatomy at the University of California, and in the latter year became professor of surgery at Yale. He was editor of the American Journal of Anatomy from 1903 to 1907 and has been a frequent contributor to medical journals on anatomy and surgery.

FLINT, Robert, Scottish theologian: b. Dumfriesshire 1838; d. 1910. He was edu

cated at the University of Glasgow, held pastorates at Aberdeen and Kilconquhar in 1859-64, and from 1864 to 1876 was professor of moral philosophy and political economy at Saint Andrews, removing in the latter year to Edinburgh as professor of theology. In 1880 he was Stone lecturer at Princeton and in 1887 Croall lecturer at Edinburgh. He wrote 'Christ's Kingdom on Earth' (1865); Philosophy of History in Europe' (1874); Theism and Anti-Theistic Theories' (1877); 'Historical Philosophy in France' (1894); Socialism' (1894); Sermons and Addresses' (1899); Agnosticism' (1903); 'Philosophy as Scientia Scientiarum (1904); On Theological, Biblical and Other Subjects' (1905).

FLINT, Mich., city and county-seat of Genesee County, on the Flint River and on the Chicago and Grand Trunk and the Flint and Pere Marquette railroads, 64 miles northwest of Detroit. Flint has a courthouse, the State Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, a private retreat for the insane, a high school, waterworks, gas and electric lights, public library, Federal buildings, courthouse, city hall, a national bank and several daily, weekly and monthly periodicals. The manufacture of automobiles, buggies, aeroplane motors, carriages and varnishes is extensively carried on, and there are also minor manufactures of flour, iron products, electric-stoves, cigars, bricks and tiles. The United States Census of Manufactures for 1914 showed within the city limits 93 industrial establishments of factory grade, employing 9,963 persons; 8,722 being wage earners receiving $7,235,000 annually in wages. The capital invested aggregated $27,151,000, and the year's output was valued at $53,375,000; of this, $18,941,000 was the value added by manufacture. It is well known as a centre for the grain trade, large elevators accommodating this enterprise. Originally settled in 1820 under the name of Grand Traverse of Flint, the city received its charter in 1855. The waterworks are owned by the municipality. The city has about 40 miles of paved streets and there is a sanitary sewers system with an intercepting system to carry sanitary sewage to a disposal plant. There are a large park and boulevard drive system and a large, wellequipped amusement park and many theatres. Pop. 65,000.

FLINT, or FLINTSHIRE, North Wales, a maritime county having on the north the Irish Sea and on the east the river Dee and Cheshire, with the county of Denbigh on the west. Its area is 256 square miles, and it is the smallest county in Wales. The low and sandy coast becomes fertile along the estuary of the Dee. Wheat and oats are the principal crops, and dairy products are manufactured. A range of hills running parallel to the Dee rises in the highest part to 825 feet. Carboniferous rocks underlie Flintshire, and the chief minerals are coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc and limestone. Mining is the principal industry, and there are some manufactures of cotton, pottery, chemicals, etc. The chief towns are Flint and Saint Asaph, Holywell. The county returns one member to Parliament. Pop. 92,700.

FLINT, Wales, a municipal borough and seaport, the capital of Flintshire, 13 miles southwest of Liverpool. It has a handsome parish