CLASS TELEOSTEI. 



99 



ORDER SYNENTOGNATHI (sin en to na'thl). 



The Flying-fish has large pectoral fins, by which it 

 can support itself in the 

 air for a few seconds.* 

 Its brilliant coloring 

 makes it the common 

 prey of bird and fish. 



* This so-called "flight" is 

 only the result of an impetus 

 acquired by swimming to the 

 surface with great velocity, in 

 order to escape its enemies. It 

 can not change its course, nor 

 raise itself in the air, and its fins 

 can not be flapped like wings, 

 but serve only as a parachute. 

 Capt. Basil Hall gives a very ani- 

 mated description of the pursuit 



Ex o cce' (us ml \ tans. Flying-fish. ( J. 



of a school of flying-fish by a dolphin (Cor^phce'na hipp&'i'is, Coryphene, note, 

 p. 203). " The flying-fish took their flight to windward. A large dolphin, which 

 had been keeping company with us abreast of the weather gangway, and, as usual, 

 glistening most beautifully in the sun, no sooner detected our poor dear friends 

 take wing than he turned his head toward them, darted to the surface, and 

 leaped from the water with a velocity little short, as it seemed to us, of a cannon- 

 ball. But though the impetus with which he shot himself into the air gave him 

 an initial velocity greatly exceeding that of the flying-fish, the start which his 

 fated prey had got enabled them to keep ahead of him for a considerable time. 

 The length of the dolphin's first spring could not have been less than ten yards, 

 and after he fell we could see him gliding like lightning through the water for a 

 moment, when he again rose and shot upward with considerably greater velocity 

 than at first, and of course to a still greater distance. In this manner, the mer- 

 ciless pursuer seemed to stride along the sea, while his brilliant coat sparkled and 

 flashed in the sun. As he fell headlong in the water at the end of each leap, a 

 series of circles was sent far over the surface, for the breeze just enough to keep 

 the royals and topgallant studding-sails extended was hardly felt as yet below. 

 The group of wretched flying-fish, thus hotly pursued, at length dropped into the 

 sea ; but we were rejoiced to observe that they merely touched the top of the 

 swell, and instantly set off again in a fresh and even more vigorous flight. The 

 direction they now took was quite different from the one in which they had set 

 out, implying that they had detected their fierce enemy, who was gaining rapidly 

 upon them. The greedy dolphin was fully as quick-sighted ; for whenever they 

 varied their flight in the smallest degree, he lost not the tenth part of a second 

 in shaping his course so as to cut off the chase ; while they, in a manner really 

 not unlike that of the hare, doubled more than once upon their pursuer. But it 



