FLYING FISHES AND THEIR HABITS. 505 



manage to catch them. The various species of albatross, petrels, 

 gulls, skuas, and shearwaters are either too slow on the wing or too 

 small." AVhile it is not impossible that birds may occasionally pur- 

 sue fishes, such attacks must be quite exceptional and not habitual, as 

 popular accounts Avould lead the reader to suppose. Such stories 

 have been repudiated also by Saunders (1874), Pascoe (1881), and 

 the Earl of Pembroke. 



Nevertheless, flying fishes, under some circumstances, can be caught 

 by birds and are caught in numbers. Collingwood, in his " Ram- 

 bles of a Naturalist" (1808), records a notable case. '' Pratas 

 Island" is a coral islet of the China Sea (latitude 20° 42' north, 

 longitude 110^ 43' east) , " about a mile and a half long and half a mile 

 wide," frequented by numerous gannets and, on examining the food 

 vomited by disturbed birds, Collingwood " found it to consist invari- 

 ably of flying fish, generally of a large size, and usually but slightly 

 digested. There were sometimes six or seven of these fish, in othcn- 

 cases only three or four, in two or three cases a squid or two inter- 

 mixed with them." Yet " not a single fish was observed on the wing " 

 near the islet. The ingested fishes " were probably taken in the water 

 by the birds." 



V. 



Flying fishes are of considerable gastronomic importance and are 

 regarded l)y most of those who have tried them as very savory and 

 surpassed by few others. Perhaps the best known to epicures are the 

 Cypselu7'us sfeculiger (long known as the Exoccetus volitans) and 

 the Cypselurus californicns. The palatability of the former was 

 appreciated at Barbados by tlie writer, and Jordan and Everman have 

 declared the latter to be " an excellent food fish, sometimes taken by 

 the thousand off Santa Barbara." On account of their mode of 

 occurrence, however, regular fisheries are entirely exceptional. 



One region, the island of Barbados, is quite celebrated on account 

 of the numbers of a species of flying fish just mentioned {Cypsehfrus 

 speculiger) that occur in the vicinity. It is " so abundant in some 

 seasons of the year," says R. H. Schomburgk (1848), '' that they con- 

 stitute an important article of food, and during the season a large 

 number of small boats are occupied in fishing." " Such large num- 

 bers are occasionally caught that they meet with no sale and are 

 thrown away or used as manure." They form a staple in the way of 

 fish for the island and every visitor during the proper season is ad- 

 vised to try the flying fish and, heeding, does not repent. " The suc- 

 culent delicacy of the fish is certainly a thing to remember." So 

 records a writer in Chambers's Journal (1894). 



The fishing grounds are "little more than 10 or 12 miles from 



