A bird, for a comedy.

[Footnote: The biographies say so much, and the author's notes say
so little of the invention attributed to Leonardo of making
artificial birds fly through the air, that the text here given is of
exceptional interest from being accompanied by a sketch. It is a
very slight drawing of a bird with outspread wings, which appears to
be sliding down a stretched string. Leonardo's flying machines and
his studies of the flight of birds will be referred to later.]