The thing that changed his mind was another aircraft. It approached from
behind, making even more noise than the other, and proceeded to draw
abreast of it. From time to time Van Emmon's agent turned his mysterious
periscope so as to take it all in, and the geologist was able to watch
his fill. Whereupon he became converted to a new idea:
The birds that Smith and he had seen had not been birds at all, but
aircraft built in imitation of them.
For this new arrival had been made in almost perfect imitation of a bee!
It was very close to an exact reproduction. For one exception, it did
not have the hairy appearance so characteristic of bees; the body and
"legs" were smooth, and shiny. (Later, Van Emmon saw machines which went
so far as even to imitate the hairs.) Also, instead of trying to
duplicate the two compound eyes which are found, one on each side of a
bee's head, a perfectly round representation of a single eye was built,
like a conning tower, toward the front of the bow. Presumably, the
observer sat or stood within this "head."
But otherwise it was wonderfully like a drone bee. Van Emmon was
strongly reminded of what he had once viewed under a powerful lens. The
fragile semitransparent wings, the misshapen legs, and even the jointed
body with its scale-like segments, all were carefully duplicated on a
large scale.
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