IGG On Fiijinij-Jislt Flight. 



creditetl with so many other inipossib'e feats on behalf of 

 tliese fish. Tliis habit of theirs is qnite well known, and is 

 cft'ccted by vaisinp; themselves and steerini;', j)ure and simple. 



Their tr.kin"- a baited hook is also denied. As u matter of 

 fact, a baited hook is the first part of the fish in, ^-process of 

 the Barbados ffying-fishing fleet, with which 1 have been 

 ont. We had a blank da}'; but, according to the animated 

 description of the boatmen, the struggles of the first victim 

 bring round it swarms of symj)athisers (as gulls flock round 

 a wounded com))anion), and these are " raked ^^ into the boat 

 by the hand hoop- net, an enlarged edition of a lound shallow 

 shrimp-net without any handle. 



1 have throughout this paper spoken of flying-fish generally, 

 for the wing-areas of all of the known kinds are to their 

 weights and speeds such that the impossibility of their prac- 

 tical use as aeroplanes differs only in degree. 



Flying-fish put on different aspects according to the state 

 of air and sea. One is rather startled at times by the changes 

 in their methods. In oily equatorial calms, I have watched 

 them in numbers flying long distances with their tails in the 

 water and their heads and wings in the air, the body making 

 an angle of perhaps 30° or 40° with the horizon. The wake 

 left in the water by tie dragging tail showed, as well as I 

 could judge, no signs of its having been used for purposes of 

 jjropulsion, even in its own element, and it is, perhaps, simply 

 to relieve the fish of its weight that it is so supported when 

 there is no fear of the wings being caught by ruffled water; 

 nevertheless the peculiar long lower half of these tails 

 specially adapts tliem for use as auxiliary propellers to a 

 fish which, with their exception, is a "fish out of water'^ ; 

 jaid it looks so like a case of natural evolution, that I feel 

 inclined to doubt the justice of my personal observation as to 

 their non-use. 



It would seem, from this habit, reasonable to suppose that 

 the fish have the power of flapping their wings at various 

 angles, as have birds, as ordinarily their bodies are fairly 

 horizontal as ihey fly. 



The flight of these fish is often described as " graceful,^' 

 "light," and so on. To him who believes that they soar 

 along easily for 200 yards without further eff'ort than 

 a preliminary leap from the sea, such an opinion may be a 

 natural one. 



'J'o him who recognizes that such a leap is mechanically 

 impossible, whether or not assisted by a continuous lail-snove- 

 nant, or to him, who, without thinking particularly about it 



