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. (A. N.)
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.
Emilie Flygare-Carlén’s novels were collected in thirty-one volumes (Stockholm, 1869–1875).
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.
Fig. 1.—Dactylopterus volitans.
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
