FISH OUT OF WATER. 341 



seen them myself, and I maintain that on such a question one piece of 

 positive evidence is a great deal better than a hundred negative. The 

 testimony of all the witnesses who didn't see the murder committed is 

 as nothing compared with the single testimony of the one man who 

 really did see it. And in this case I have met with many other quick 

 observers who fully agreed with me against the weight of scientific 

 opinion, that they have seen the flying-fish really fly with their own 

 eyes, and no mistake about it. The German professorp, indeed, all 

 think otherwise ; but then the German professors all wear green 

 spectacles, which are the outward and visible sign of " blinded eye- 

 sight poring over miserable books." The unsophisticated vision of the 

 noble British seaman is unanimously with me on the matter of the 

 reality of the fishes' flight. 



Another group of very interesting fish out of water are the flying 

 gurnards, common enough in the Mediterranean and the tropical At- 

 lantic, They are much heavier and bigger creatures than the true 

 flying-fish of the herring type, being often a foot and a half long, and 

 their wings are much larger in proportion, though not, I think, really 

 so powerful as those of their pretty little silvery rivals. All flying- 

 fish fly only of necessity, not from choice. They leave the water 

 when pursued by their enemies, or when frightened by the rapid 

 approach of a big steamer. So swiftly do they fly, however, that they 

 can far outstrip a ship going at the rate of ten knots an hour ; and I 

 have often watched one keep ahead of a great Pacific liner under full 

 steam for many minutes together in quick, successive flights of three 

 or four hundred feet each. Oddly enough, they can fly farther against 

 the wind than before it — a fact acknowledged even by the spectacled 

 Germans themselves, and very hard indeed to reconcile with the ortho- 

 dox belief that they are not flying at all, but only jumping. I don't 

 know whether the flying gurnards are good eating or not ; but the 

 silvery flying-fish are caught for market (sad desecration of the poetry 

 of Nature !) in the Windward Islands, and, when nicely fried in Qgg 

 and bread-crumb, are really quite as good, for practical purposes, as 

 smelts or whiting, or any other prosaic European substitute. 



On the whole, it will be clear, I think, to the impartial reader, 

 from this rapid survey, that the helplessness and awkwardness of a 

 fish out of water have been much exaggerated by the thoughtless gen- 

 eralization of unscientific humanity. Granting, for argument's sake, 

 that most fish prefer the water, as a matter of abstract predilection, 

 to the dry land, it must be admitted jier contra that many fish cut a 

 much better figure on terra Jirma than most of their critics them- 

 selves would cut in mid-ocean. There are fish that wriggle across- 

 country intrepidly with the dexterity and agility of the most accom- 

 plished snakes ; there are fish that walk about on open sand-banks, 

 semi-erect on two legs, as easily as lizards ; there are fish that hop and 

 skip on tail and fins in a manner that the celebrated jumping-frog 



