Flying Fish and their Enemies. 271 



phins, beyond a doubt, hotly chasing their prey. They do 

 not often venture so near a steamship as this, but at this 

 moment they were reckless angry, maybe, that the flying 

 fish should still keep out of their clutches. The dolphins 

 raced mostly neck and neck, but the outer one sometimes 

 sheered off and increased the distance between him and the 

 ship. As the flying fish rushed out of the sea the dolphins 

 would put on a spurt, and literally side by side shoot ahead 

 with the evident intention of catching the quarry as it touched 

 water. So they disappeared the dolphins very confident ; 

 the flying fish wary, but alarmed. It was an exciting race, 

 for the odds were not by any means even. 



The brilliant-coloured fish which is always called dolphin, 

 but which is, accurately speaking, the coryphene, knows the 

 difference between a steamer and a sailing ship, and is there- 

 fore rarely to be seen in the vicinity of the former. The 

 noise of propeller and paddle is, indeed, most effective in 

 frightening the monsters of the deep, and this, coupled with 

 the great speed at which steam vessels travel, robs the steam- 

 boat passenger of the enjoyment which falls to the lot of 

 those who go down to the sea in canvas-propelled ships. 

 At a moderate speed, say from four to six knots an hour, 

 dolphin, bonito, and albacore may be taken, either by 

 harpooning from the bowsprit or the chains underneath, or 

 by trailing white and red rag, or any other rude imitation of 

 the flying fish, from the stern. 



In the Red Sea I attempted something with two tassels 

 of crimson and white wool, but as the ship was making 

 eleven knots an hour the experiment was a miserable failure. 

 No fish was likely to have been so befooled, and if one had 

 been hooked, I must have hauled its head from its shoulders 

 before I could have brought it to the ship. In the Gulf of 

 Aden three or four bonitos leaped out of the sea a little 



