522 APPENDIX. 



IL FLYING-FISHES. 



THE motions of animals vary greatly with reference to the 

 medium in which they live. Our present knowledge renders it, 

 however, necessary that we should weigh these differences with 

 reference to the structural character of the organs of locomotion 

 themselves, as well as to that of the peculiar resistance of the 

 element in which they move. When we speak of the flight of 

 Birds, of Insects, of Fishes, of Bats, &c., and designate their 

 locomotive organs indiscriminately as wings, it is evident that the 

 character of the motion and not the special structure of the organs 

 has determined our nomenclature. We are influenced by the same 

 consideration when we give the name of fins to the organs of all 

 animals which swim in the water, be they Whales, Turtles, Fishes, 

 Crustacea, or Mollusks. It requires but a superficial acquaintance 

 with the anatomy of the flying-fishes to perceive that their organs 

 of flight are built upon exactly the same pattern as the pectoral 

 fins of most fishes, and differ entirely from the wing of birds, as 

 also from the wing of bats, the latter being in all essentials a paw, 

 identical with the paw of ordinary quadrupeds, save the length of 

 the fingers and the absence of nails on the longest of them. No 

 wonder, then, that the flight of the flying-fishes should entirely 

 differ from that of birds or bats, 



I have had frequent occasions to observe the flying-fishes atten- 

 tively. I am confident not only that they change the direction 

 of their flight, but that they raise or lower their line of move- 

 ment repeatedly, without returning to the water. I avoid the word 

 falling designedly, for all the acts of these fishes during their 

 flight seem to me completely voluntary. They raise themselves 

 from the surface of the water by rapidly repeated blows with the 

 tail, and more than once have I seen them descend again to the 



