39G ORDER MALACOPTERYGII ABDOMINALES. 



pedicles, and forming of themselves the edge of the 

 upper jaw ; their two jaws are furnished with small 

 pointed teeth, and their pharyngeal bones with teeth 

 en pave. 



There are six rays to their gills ; their natatory 

 bladder is very large, and their intestine straight, and 

 without cceca. The superior lobe of the caudal is the 

 shortest. Their flight is never very long ; rising into 

 the air to escape from the voracious fishes, they 

 soon fall back, because their wings only serve the 

 purpose of parachutes. The birds pursue them in 

 the air, as the fishes do in the water. They are 

 found in all seas, hot and temperate. 



We have one which is common enough in the Me- 

 diterranean, to be recognized by the length of its 

 ventrals, placed farther back than the middle of the 

 body. It is the Exocetus exiliens, Bl. 397. The 

 young individuals have black bands upon their fins \ 



The most common species in the ocean, Ex. volitans, 

 Bl. 398, has the ventrals small, and placed before the 

 middle 2 . 



1 Such was the little individual from Carolina, described by Lin- 

 naeus, and, as I believe, the Exocetus fascialus, Lesueur, Ac. Sc. 

 Nat. Philad. II. pi. iv. f. 2, but the second pirabebe of Pison is the 

 volitans. 



'' I see by the drawings of Commerson, and by that of White 

 (Botan. Bay, App. p. 266), as well as by the communications of our 

 recent travellers, that some of both forms are to be found in the 

 Pacific Ocean. 



N.B. The exiliens and the mesogaster, Bl. 329, resemble very 



