Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/606

 eyes surrounded by bare skin of the same colour—though these are characters possessed in some degree by all the species—seems to be the most beautiful of the genus. T. bourbonnensis, which is peculiar to the islands of Mauritius and Réunion, appears to be the only species in which the outward difference of the sexes is but slight. In T. corvina of the Seychelles, the adult male is wholly black, and his middle tail-feathers are not only very long but very broad. In T. mutata of Madagascar, some of the males are found in a blackish plumage, though with the elongated median rectrices white, while in others white predominates over the whole body; but whether this sex is here actually dimorphic, or whether the one dress is a passing phase of the other, is at present undetermined. Some of the African species, of which many have been described, seem always to retain the rufous plumage, but the long tail-feathers serve to mark the males.

A few other groups are distinguished by the brilliant blue they exhibit, as Myiagra azurea, and others as Monarcha (or Arses) chrysomela by their golden yellow. The Australian forms assigned to the Muscicapidae are very varied. Sisura inquieta has some of the habits of a water-wagtail (Motacilla), and hence has received the name of “dishwasher,” bestowed in many parts of England on its analogue; and the many species of Rhipidura or fantailed flycatchers, which occur in various parts of the Australian Region, have manners still more singular—turning over in the air, it is said, like a tumbler pigeon, as they catch their prey; but concerning the mode of life of the majority of the Muscicapidae, and especially of the numerous African forms, hardly anything is known.

 FLYGARE-CARLÉN, EMILIE (1807–1892), Swedish novelist, was born in Strömstad on the 8th of August 1807. Her father, Rutger Smith, was a retired sea-captain who had settled down as a small merchant, and she often accompanied him on the voyages he made along the coast. She married in 1827 a doctor named Axel Flygare, and went with him to live in the province of Småland. After his death in 1833 she returned to her old home and published in 1838 her first novel, Waldemar Klein. In the next year she removed to Stockholm, and married, in 1841, the jurist and poet, Johan Gabriel Carlén (1814–1875). Her house became a meeting-place for Stockholm men of letters, and for the next twelve years she produced one or two novels annually. The premature death of her son Edvard Flygare (1829–1853), who had already published three books, showing great promise, was followed by six years of silence, after which she resumed her writing until 1884. The most famous of her tales are Rosen på Tistelön (1842; Eng. trans. The Rose of Tistelön, 1842); Enslingen på Johannesskäret (1846; Eng. trans. The Hermit, 4 vols., 1853); and Ett Köpemanshus i skärgården (1859; The Merchant’s House on the Cliffs). Fru Carlén published in 1878 Minnen af svenskt författarlif 1840–1860, and in 1887–1888 three volumes of Efterskörd från en 80- årings författarbana, containing her last tales. She died at Stockholm on the 5th of February 1892. Her daughter, Rosa Carlén (1836–1883), was also a popular novelist.

 FLYING BUTTRESS, in architecture, the term given to a structural feature employed to transmit the thrust of a vault across an intervening space, such as an aisle, chapel or cloister, to a buttress built outside the latter. This was done by throwing a semi-arch across to the vertical buttress. Though employed by the Romans and in early Romanesque work, it was generally masked by other constructions or hidden under a roof, but in the 12th century it was recognized as rational construction and emphasized by the decorative accentuation of its features, as in the cathedrals of Chartres, Le Mans, Paris, Beauvais, Reims, &c. Sometimes, owing to the great height of the vaults, two semi-arches were thrown one above the other, and there are cases where the thrust was transmitted to two or even three buttresses across intervening spaces. As a vertical buttress, placed at a distance, possesses greater power of resistance to thrust than if attached to the wall carrying the vault, vertical buttresses as at Lincoln and Westminster Abbey were built outside the chapterhouse to receive the thrust. All vertical buttresses are, as a rule, in addition weighted with pinnacles to give them greater power of resistance.

 FLYING COLUMN, in military organization, an independent corps of troops usually composed of all arms, to which a particular task is assigned. It is almost always composed in the course of operations, out of the troops immediately available. Mobility being its raison d’être, a flying column is when possible composed of picked men and horses accompanied with the barest minimum of baggage. The term is usually, though not necessarily, applied to forces under the strength of a brigade. The “mobile columns” employed by the British in the South African War of 1899–1902, were usually of the strength of two battalions of infantry, a battery of artillery, and a squadron of cavalry—almost exactly half that of a mixed brigade. Flying columns are mostly used in savage or guerrilla warfare.

 “FLYING DUTCHMAN,” a spectre-ship popularly believed to haunt the waters around the Cape of Good Hope. The legend has several variants, but the commonest is that which declares that the captain of the vessel, Vanderdecken, was condemned for his blasphemy to sail round the cape for ever, unable to “make” a port. In the Dutch version the skipper is the ghost of the Dutch seaman Van Straaten. The appearance of the “Flying Dutchman” is considered by sailors as ominous of disaster. The German legend makes one Herr Von Falkenberg the hero, and alleges that he is condemned to sail for ever around the North Sea, on a ship without helm or steersman, playing at dice for his soul with the devil. Sir Walter Scott says the “Flying Dutchman” was originally a vessel laden with bullion. A murder was committed on board, and thereafter the plague broke out among the crew, which closed all ports to the ill-fated craft. The legend has been used by Wagner in his opera Der fliegende Holländer.

 FLYING-FISH, the name given to two different kinds of fish. The one (Dactylopterus) belongs to the gurnard family (Triglidae), and is more properly called flying gurnard; the other (Exocoetus) has been called flying herring, though more nearly allied to the gar-pike than to the herring. Some other fishes with long pectoral fins (Pterois) have been stated to be able to fly, but this has been proved to be incorrect.



The flying gurnards are much less numerous than the Exocoeti with regard to individuals as well as species, there being only three or four species known of the former, whilst more than fifty have been described of the latter, which, besides, are found in numerous shoals of thousands. The Dactylopteri may be readily distinguished by a large bony head armed with spines, hard keeled scales, two dorsal fins, &c. The Exocoeti have thin, deciduous scales, only one dorsal fin, and the ventrals placed far backwards, below the middle of the body; some have long barbels at the chin. In both kinds the pectoral fins are greatly prolonged and enlarged, modified into an organ of flight, and in many species of Exocoetus the ventral fins are similarly enlarged, and evidently assist in the aerial evolutions of these fishes. Flying-fishes are found in the tropical and subtropical seas only, and it is a singular fact that the geographical distribution of the two kinds is nearly identical. Flying-fish are more frequently 