328 Lieut.-Col. C. D. Darnford on 



not perhaps exist : — Many people can see bullets in their 

 liight. ]\Iany others uith equally good^ or even better, sight 

 cannot pick up the flying bullets. Now it" those who fail 

 to see them said, and if all books and papers on shooting 

 supported them in so saying, " I cannot see the bullets, 

 therefore you, and all those who do see them, do not see 

 theni,'^ we should have a parallel to the current odd mode of 

 conducting the flying-fish problem. 



It is in consequence of this supremacy of the negative 

 that the flying-fish problem has earned for itself the name 

 of " eternal/^ for as soon as one new witness can see the 

 flight, either another new one fails to do so, or a reference is 

 made to some observer who has formerly so failed ; and this 

 is equally satisfactory, for, in the problem, even an old ''I 

 did not " is better than a new ^' I do,^^ 



It might naturally be supposed that there must be an 

 overAvhelming backing of probability, both mechanical and 

 natural, to the negative evidence in order to justify such 

 dogged denial to the affirmative of its common value. So far, 

 however, from this being the case, it is a second odd fact 

 that but one seemingly practical eS'ort at proof has been 

 made, and with this one exception aeroplane flight rests 

 wholly upon the flat negative. 



Let us examine this solitary attempt at proof. 



I requote from an article, which may be taken as 

 typical of the system, in the ' Annual Report of the 

 Smithsonian Institution,' 1904, p. 498, by Dr. Theodore 

 Gill, an emphatic aeroplanist : — " Mobius (1878, 1885) con- 

 tended that * Flying-fish are incapable of jbjing [the italics 

 are his], for the simple reason that the muscles of the pectoral 

 fins ai-e not large enough to bear the weight of their body 

 aloft in the air.' " If undisputed that is, without doubt, a 

 most poAverful argument — decisive, in fact. But mark ! 

 almost immediately Prof. AVhitman, a high authority, denies 

 its accuracy. In the same article we find that this state- 

 ment is "vigorously objected to by C. O. AYhitmau (1880), 

 who urged, 'Admitting that in form, size, length, and 

 structure the pectoral fins of Exocoetus are less well 

 adapted to flight than the Mings of most birds, there is still 

 am})lc room to believe, on anatomical and physiological 

 grounds alone, that they are capable of executing true 

 flight.''' This is a ])lain statement moderately worded 

 by a distinguished physiologist and naturalist, and it is 

 interesting to note that it is answered, as though by con- 

 vincing argument, by the old irritating impasse — the re- 

 ference to views of distinguished naturalists as to whether 



