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F L Y I N G - F I S H. 



The flying-fishes are, on the other hand, small and 

 feeble ; and though, at first sight, the extraordinary 

 development of fins with which they are provided 

 might seem to give them some certainty of escape, it 

 rather appears that they are thereby placed in double 

 danger. The form of their body is, no doubt, well 

 adapted for swimming ; but it is questionable whether 

 the great size of their fins may not, upon the whole, 

 be an impediment to them in making their way through 

 the waters. The form of the dorsal and anal fins must, 

 by preventing the lateral motion of a considerable 

 length of the body, lessen the effect of the anal fin 

 in projecting them along. How the large pectorals 

 may act in swimming, it is not easy to say, though 

 they cannot, to any very great extent, produce pro- 

 gressive motion, and seem more likely to hinder it. 

 * At any rate the flying-fish is the constant prey of 

 all the voracious fishes which range over the surface 

 of the wide seas of the warm latitudes, in which only 

 or chiefly flying fishes are found. Their power of leap- 

 ing into the air, and sustaining themselves there for the 

 space of more than half a minute, and in no instance 

 probably exceeding, or even amounting to two hun- 

 dred yards in distance, is not calculated to save them 

 ultimately from their aquatic enemies, while it cer- 

 tainly exposes them to new enemies in the air ; for, 

 when they rise in shoals, as they often do, the preda- 

 tory birds, which are constantly ranging over the 

 same seas, make prize of numbers of them ; and it is 

 very probable that, as is the case with salmon when 

 they leap, on being nearly overtaken by seals or por- 

 poises, the flying-fish fall much nearer to their pur- 

 suers, than they are when they leap out of the water. 

 Indeed, when the flying-fishes leap out of the water, it 

 is generally observed, if the observer is near enough, 

 that there is a shoal of coryphenes driving them along, 

 very much in the same way that porpoises drive sal- 

 mon ; and, as the exertion of the leap, and the expo- 

 sure to the air, which is not their natural element, 

 must jointly tend to weaken them : and farther, as 

 they must require some time after their fall, before 

 they can adjust themselves to the water, so as to have 

 the same command of their swimming apparatus that 

 they had when they quitted it, this must farther help 

 to make them a more easy prey. 



Though these fishes can project themselves to the 

 height of fifteen or twenty feet above the surface of 

 the water, and take such a direction in their leap as 

 can carry them to a horizontal distance of a hundred 

 and fifty or two hundred yards, it is quite a mistake to 

 call the motion " flying," or the animals which perform 

 it "flying-fishes." They are just as powerless in the 

 air, and as incapable of making any effort there, as a 

 wingless inhabitant of the land is. Their only power is 

 in the water, and they can get no impetus of any kind 

 but by acting against the water, as the point of resistance 

 from which they are propelled. They are exactly in 

 the situation of arrows shot at an oblique range. The 

 force which urges them on acts only at the commence- 

 ment ; and both the force of gravitation and the re- 

 sistance of the air begin the destruction of it the instant 

 they are in motion. 



That there may be some advantages gained by the 

 elasticity of the air reacting upon the fins and scales of 

 a fish (and good leaping fishes are all scaly), we do 

 not deny ; but it would be no easy problem to deter- 

 mine the amount or even the nature of this. It is also 

 true that, as remarked by Cuvier, the produced and 

 expanded pectoral fins of these fishes may prevent 



their falling so rapidly as they otherwise would do. 

 But even this acting like a parachute, and protracting 

 of the fall, is a delivering of the fish up to an element 

 which is not its own, and in which it is consequently 

 quite helpless. 



There is no organ that can act upon the air except 

 a wing, and no wing can be moved but by means of 

 pectoral muscles which have their fulcrum in a sternum 

 of bone upon the under side of the animal. In birds 

 the power of flight is always in proportion as the struc- 

 ture of skeleton supports the sternum, and in propor- 

 tion as the muscles are concentrated upon this bone ; 

 and even in those mammalia, such as the bats and a 

 few others, which make a sort of grotesque and flut- 

 tering flight by means of an apparatus of this kind, 

 there is always a provision bearing some resemblance 

 to that organisation which works the wings of a bird. 



In the flying-fishes, there is no such provision as 

 this, no muscular structure by the action of which they 

 j can give their pectoral fins any motion bearing the 

 slightest resemblance to that which wings have in 

 flight ; the only effect of the fin being to diminish the 

 rate and descent to the ground, in the same manner 

 as a sheet of paper falls much more slowly, when its 

 flat side is downward than when its edge is. The 

 fins are, in fact, just as passive when the fish is in the 

 air, as the sheet of paper is when it is let fall with its 

 flat side in the position which has been stated. The 

 arrangement of the muscles in those fishes does not 

 differ from that of the rest of the class ; and though 

 the fins are larger and a little different in their situa- 

 tions, there is not much more enlargement of bone, or 

 provision for motion in the fins in a flying-fish than 

 in any other. There is even less concentration of the 

 fins in those fishes, than there is in some of the species 

 which inhabit the bottom of the waters, and never by 

 anychance come to the surface ; for though the ventral 

 fins are placed farther forward than they are in many 

 fishes, they are still abdominal fins, and not articulated 

 to the bone of the shoulder as is the case with the 

 ground fishes. 



We are therefore to regard the flight, as it is termed, 

 of these fishes as merely a leap, the whole exertion 

 producing which is performed by their action on the 

 water, and on the water alone ; and though, as is the 

 case with any other body which is projected obliquely, 

 they rise upward in a curve, and fall less veitically 

 than they rise, in consequence of the wings acting as 

 a parachute, they are just as much at the mercy of 

 the air as any other passive substance which can be 

 projected into it. 



We have felt it necessary to state at some length 

 the utter impossibility of these fishes being in any 

 respect air animals, or real fliers, in consequence of 

 the many absurdities respecting them which are found 

 in most of the books of popular description. In 

 these it is represented that they not only can turn to 

 the right or left while they are in the air, but that they 

 can ascend and descend, so as to accomodate them- 

 selves to the waving surface of the sea, and thus 

 preserve an equal distance from the ridge and trough 

 of the wave, as long as they are in the air. In this 

 there is another deception which is not unworthy of 

 notice, as illustrative of the real phenomena of the 

 sea. The motion of the waves, though they appear 

 to roll onward before the wind, is not a progressive 

 motion of the water, but a mere vibration of the sur- 

 face, the wave swinging on the centre of its elevation 

 in the same manner as a pendulum swings on its point 



