FLYING FISHES AND THEIR HABITS. 



By Theodore Gill. 



Flig;lit is a prcHMiiineiit attribule of terrostrial animals aiul is more 

 especially associated l>y most })ersoiis ^vitll tlie hii'ds, hut it is by no 

 means an uncommon faculty. Indited, not to be able to fly is the ex- 

 ce2)tion for land animals, if number of species determine such a 

 problem. This will be evident when it is rem(Mnl)ered that all but a 

 small percentage of insects fly, and insects are far more numerous 

 than all other inhabitants of the land coml)ined. Furthermore, the 

 birds, whose chief attribute is the j)ower of flight and adaptation 

 therefor, are more numerous than all other terrestrial vertebrates to- 

 gether. We may repeat, therefore, that non-flight is excej)tional and 

 flight the normal pr(»vision for animals generally; flight, indeed, has 

 been de\'el()[)ed anew, time after time, in animals with liml)s of the 

 ambulatorial type. 



The power of flight is also generally attributed to certain hshes, and 

 it is interesting and significant that the adaptation and power which 

 enable hshes to course through the; air have also been developed in 

 several entirely distinct grcMips. The faculty exists in its greatest 

 [)erfection in two widely distinct families, one (the Exoco'tids) being 

 unai'med, soft-finned fishes of the group called Synentognathi and 

 the other (the Dactylopterids) being armed acanthopterygian fishes 

 related to the Gurnards. There are other fishes — among them rela- 

 tions of the Exoccetines and I)actylo])terids — which have the })()wer 

 of progressing through the air to some extent, but their power to do 

 so is so much less than those generally called flying fishes that they 

 need not be considered here. Those to be now described will tliei'e- 

 fore be confined to the two famiHes indicated — the Exocietids and 

 Dactylopterids. 



In all the flying fishes the power of flight, or rather sustentalioii in 

 ihe air, is effected in the same manner, that is, by the elongation of 



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