Winged Beasts, a squandered resource?

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I think it's yet another example of archaic Tolkienisms. Tolkien says 'in' when he means 'on' or 'atop', and uses 'under' when he means 'in' or 'below'.

I took it be "in" as in "we went hiking in the mountains". In fact it never occurred to me that there was a another way of reading it.