108 MALACOP. ABDOM. PIKE FAMILY. 



furnished with teeth, their pharynx with pavement 

 ones ; their air-bladder is very large, and the lower 

 lobe of the tail much longer than the upper. They 

 abound in all the seas of warm climates. 



The flights of these beautiful little fish, principally 

 occasioned by their efforts to escape from their 

 many foes, — larger fishes, and Dolphins, and Por- 

 poises below the wave, and marine birds of prey 

 above them — ^having often excited the attention of 

 voyagers and occasionally of naturalists, we shall 

 adduce a few notices concerning them by the latter 

 class of gentlemen. Mr. George Bennett, in his 

 Wanderings in New South Wales, observes " I have 

 never been able to see any percussion of the pectoral 

 fins during flight ; and the greatest length of time I 

 have seen these volatile fisli on the Jin has been 

 thirty seconds by the watch, and their longest flight, 

 mentioned by Capt. Hall, has been two hundred 

 yards, though he thinks that subsequent observation 

 has extended the space. The most usual height of 

 the flight, as seen above the surface of the water, is 

 from two to three feet ; but I have known them 

 come on board at the height of fourteen feet and 

 upwards ; and they have been well ascertained to 

 come into the channels of a line-of-battle ship, which 

 is as high as twenty feet and upwards. It must not 

 however, be supposed that they have the power of 

 elevating themselves in the air after they have left 

 their native element ; for, on watcliing them, I have 

 often seen them fall much below the elevation at 

 which they first rose from the water, but never, in 



