his neck, gave a squawk and went off. Presently he returned
with eleven other gulls, and they seemed to hold a conclave
about one hundred feet above the big new white bird which they
had discovered on the sand. They circled round after round, and
once in a while there was a series of loud peeps, like those of
a rusty gate, as if in conference, with sudden flutterings, as
if a terrifying suggestion had been made. The bolder birds
occasionally swooped downwards to inspect the monster more
closely; they twisted their heads around to bring first one eye
and then the other to bear, and then they rose again. After
some seven or eight minutes of this performance, they evidently
concluded either that the stranger was too formidable to tackle,
if alive, or that he was not good to eat, if dead, and they flew
off to resume fishing, for the weak point about a bird is his
stomach.'

The gliders were found so stable, more especially the biplane
form, that in the end Chanute permitted amateurs to make trials
under guidance, and throughout the whole series of experiments
not a single accident occurred. Chanute came to the conclusion
that any young, quick, and handy man could master a gliding
machine almost as soon as he could get the hang of a bicycle,
although the penalty for any mistake would be much more severe.

At the conclusion of his experiments he decided that neither the
multiple plane nor the biplane type of glider was sufficiently
perfected for the application of motive power. In spite of the
amount of automatic stability that he had obtained he considered
that there was yet more to be done, and he therefore advised
that every possible method of securing stability and safety