128 



EXOC^TUS. 



Body moderately compresscfl, and, with the head, clothed with scales. 

 Low down on each side of the body a row of carinatcd scales, more 

 prominent, and separate from the lateral line. Dorsal and anal fins 

 far behind. Abdominal fishes; but what particularly distinguishes this 

 genus is the very large extent of the pectoral fins, the rays of which 

 are stout and firm; the arm bone or radius of this fin also large. 



GREATER FLYING FISH. 



nirnndo TlhiU, Jonston; PI. 18, f. 5, pi. 17, f. 8. 



Mur/il alatus, Eondeletius. 



Hirtmdo, Willoughby ; Table p. 4, p. 233. 



Exoccetus exiliens, Cuvier. Tukton's Linnaeus. 



" " Yakeell; British Fishes, vol. i, p. 458. 



The earliest account we possess of the occurrence of a Flying 

 Fish in Britain is by Pennant, who reports that in June, 1765, 

 there was one caught in the River Towy, at a small distance 

 below Carmarthen; whither it had been brought by the tide 

 which flows as far as that town. He had not himself seen it, 

 and as at the time when Pennant wrote his "British Zoology," 

 it was not understood that there existed more than one species 

 of Flying Fish, except indeed the Flying Gurnard; he therefore 

 saw no reason to doubt that the representation he has given, 

 and which he must have derived from some preserved example, 

 was a correct figure of the fish; although in fact it is a likeness 

 of the Lesser Flying Fish, (Exoccetus volitans,) of which we 

 entertain a doubt whether it has at any time been seen in 

 our seas. 



A second example of a Flying Fish is recorded to have been 

 found on the beach at Helford, near Falmouth, scarcely dead, 

 and still fresh from the ocean; and from the dimensions of this 



