150 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. V. 



it is no uncommon sight, between the tropics, to see one 

 or two hundred of these pretty fish rise from the surface 

 of the water, and, just skimming over the waves, de- 

 scend gradually again into the sea. By this means 

 they frequently escape the pursuit of the rapacious fish 

 swimming beneath. It is customary for compilers to 

 assert that this effort of the flying fish is attended with 

 little or no safety to themselves ; for that, so soon as they 

 quit the sea, they are assailed by gulls and other sea 

 birds, which seize them in the air. That such an event 

 sometimes takes place, no one would reasonably ques- 

 tion ; but the coincidence is very rare. We have re- 

 peatedly seen whole shoals, or rather flocks, of these 

 fish rise from the water and enter it again without a 

 sea bird being in sight ; and even where they acci- 

 dentally have been near at hand, as one bird could only 

 seize one fish, the great proportion of such as escaped 

 must be obvious. 



(170.) We may consider the slimy mucilage with 

 which the skin of all the eel-like fishes is covered, as 

 in some degree useful for their preservation. Every 

 body knows the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, 

 of holding an eel when just caught ; it slips through 

 the hand, and, in nine instances out of ten, falls into the 

 water. Eels, in fact, are among the most defenceless 

 of fish ; but the conger, which sometimes grows to a 

 very great size, is furnished with strong teeth, and 

 bites very hard. Of the defensive powers possessed by 

 the Amphibia, we are entirely unacquainted ; they are 

 ah 1 weak and simply constructed animals, living for the 

 most part in the mud and banks of ponds and swampy 

 grounds, and are totally unarmed. 



(171.) We shall now consider the means of defence 

 possessed by annulose animals, or INSECTS. It may be 

 stated as a general truth, subject but to few exceptions, 

 that the degree of danger to which an animal is sub- 

 jected, is in proportion to its size, and to the muscular 

 power with which it is endowed. We have seen that 

 to the most bulky of the true quadrupeds.. Nature has 



