FROGS AND SHAKES WHICH FLY

Evening Star, Issue 21232, 13 October 1932, Page 4

FROGS AND SHAKES WHICH FLY

For all practical purposes the aeroplane and the parachute, both of which came into being long before flight was achieved, are fundamentally one. It is now universally agreed that the birds and insects learnt to plane bclore they flew, the more primitive form still being able to do little more than augment the impetus derived from a vigorous leap, says the London Daily Telegraph.’ ~ . Efficient parachutists are the flying “ dragons ” of IMalaya, Inilliantlv-col-onrod^little lizards that plane by means of broad membranes stretched across expansions of the ribs. A rare exhibit from Borneo is the parachuting frog, an arboreal creature, though nearly related to the common frog. It has webs on fore and hind feet, which are so greatly developed that they amount to pianos. It would seem as though in Borneo at least the parachuting habit has become infectious, for a number oi small frog-eating snakes have learnt to boat the parachuting frog at his own game. The snakes have no extensile membrane, but extend their entire bodies so that the nnder-snrface becomes concave and thus odors sufficient resistance to the air. The “flying” snake, as it is called, has been observed to leap a measured distance of nearly 20ft.

Of all the creatures whose conquest of the air has stopped short at the parachute stage, the largest is the cobego, or flying lemur, of Alalaya and the Philippine Islands. This creature, virtually a Hying monkey, is about as large as a cat, and remarkable in having wide expenses of skin on either side, which stretch not only from wrist to elbow, but extend between the toes and lingers. By means of these the creature pianos from one tree to another. directing its course by a convulsive (lapping movement. Much commoner are the numerous flying squirrels, abundant throughout .Africa and Asia. They arc true rodents, chiefly remarkable for the way in which the parachute is attached. In all the Afr.can species it extends from

the ankle to an enormous rod of cartilage standing out at right angles from the elbow. 'Hie zoo usually has plenty of the prettv little Australian flying opossums on exhibition. These animals look very like the flying and commend themselves as pets—at first sight. Ihe z.oo specimens, however, have nearly all found their way to Regent’s Park as a result of assaulting the fingers of their original owners. An unsolved mystery of London relates to one of these little spitfires. A full-grown specimen was found some timc° ago disporting itself on the roof of a house in Brook street, Mayfair, where after a struggle it was captured and escorted to the nearest police station. Despite much publicity, it was never claimed, and eventually found quarters in the Zoological Society’s menagerie. Like most opossums, it resents being handled. The only invertebrates, other than insects, which have made any attempt at conquest of the air are certain spiders. The spider with a soul above mere globe-trotting climbs some convenient perch for a “ take-off ” and casts out-several threads from its spincroltcs, keeping the threads, however, still attached to the body. On the wind catching those, the spider is wafted along at the will of a summer breeze until it has a mind to return to earth. This it effects by simply hauling in the slacks, and -so by its own gravity descends slowly ami safely to terra firma as the last threads are rolled in.