Animal Locomotion; or, Walking, Swimming, and Flying

Abstract

PROGRESSION on land, in water, and in air, are phenomena so intimately connected with everyday life, that all of a thoughtful and observant turn of mind cannot help becoming acquainted, unassisted, with most of the details and much of the principle of their production. Many will therefore open a new work on the subject with a wish to have explained to them some of the more difficult and obscure problems connected with it, which are too intricate or uncommon to be within the limits of ordinary powers of observation; and to have the fundamental principles on which the subject is based, fully expounded. With such a feeling we took up the book tinder consideration, especially as Dr. Pettigrew's name has been always held up as that of the British exponent of the phenomena of flight, and the combatant of the French school. Imagine our disappointment on finding that, instead of the work being by the hand of a master, its author is deficient in the knowledge of the first principles of physics, and of the undoubted meaning of some of the most simple terms employed in the science; his argument, if it may be so called, being but little more than a long series of vague and fanciful analogies, incorrectly stated physical facts, and untenable theories.

Animal Locomotion; or, Walking, Swimming, and Flying.

By J. Bell Pettigrew (London: Henry S. King and Co., 1873)