638 TELEOSTEI CHAP. 
others (Hemirhamphus) mainly herbivorous, feeding on green 
algae. Nearly all are in the habit of making great leaps out of 
the water, this tendency culminating in the Flying-Fish (Axocoetus), 
which skip or sail through the air in a manner the explanation 
of which has given rise to much controversy. According to the 
latest evidence ! the sole source of motive power is the action of 
the strong tail while in the water; no force is acquired while 
the fish is in the air. The pectorals are not used as wings but as 
parachutes. There is every passage between the small pectoral 
fin of a Saurie (Scombresoa) or a Hemirhamphus and the swallow- 
like wings of the most developed Haocoetus. The genus Hemi- 
exocoetus 18 a very remarkable connecting form. The Gar-Pike 
(Belone), of which one species 1s common on our coasts, have both 
Fic. 389.—Gar-Pike (Belone annulata), x3. (After Cuvier and Valenciennes.) 
jaws produced into a long slender beak; the bones are green. 
In Hemirhamphus the lower jaw only is prolonged; some of the 
species, living in fresh water, are viviparous, the anal fin being 
modified into a copulatory organ, as in many Cyprinodonts. 
Scombresocidae occur in all the tropical and temperate seas. 
Belone, Scombresox, and Hemirhamphus are found in Upper Eocene 
and Miocene beds of Europe, and, as stated above, P. otaulopsis 
should perhaps be referred to this family. 
' Kiikenthal, Abh. Senck. Ges. xxii. 1896, p. 9; Mobius, Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. 
xxx. Suppl. 1878, p. 343, and Arch. Physiol. (Leipzig), 1889, p. 348 ; Jordan and 
Evermann, Fish, N. Amer. p. 780. 
