FISH OUT OF WATEE 313 



the water with a powerful impulse, and fall again as soon 

 as the force of the first impetus is entirely spent. When 

 men endeavour to persuade you to such folly, believe them 

 not. For my own part, I have seen the flying fish fly 

 deliberately fly, and flutter, and rise again, and change the 

 direction of their flight in mid- air, exactly after the fashion 

 of a big dragonfly. If the other people who have watched 

 them haven't succeeded in seeing them fly, that is their 

 own fault, or at least their own misfortune ; perhaps their 

 eyes weren't quick enough to catch the rapid, though to me 

 perfectly recognisable, hovering and fluttering of the gauze- 

 like wings ; but I have seen them myself, and I maintain 

 that on such a question one piece of positive evidence is a 

 great deal better than a hundred negative. The testimony 

 of all the witnesses who didn't see the murder committed 

 is as nothing compared with the single testimony of the 

 one man who really did see it. And in this case I have 

 met with many other quick observers who fully agreed with 

 me, against the weight of scientific opinion, that they have 

 seen the flying fish really fly with their own eyes, and no 

 mistake about it. The German professors, indeed, all think 

 otherwise ; but then the German professors all wear green 

 spectacles, which are the outward and visible sign of' blinded 

 eyesight poring over miserable books.' The unsophisti- 

 cated vision of the noble British seaman is unanimously 

 with me on the matter of the reality of the fishes' flight. 



Another group of very interesting fish out of water are 

 the flying gurnards, common enough in the Mediterranean 

 .and the tropical Atlantic. They are much heavier and bigger 

 creatures than the true flying fish of the herring type, 

 being often a foot and a half long, and their wings are 

 much larger in proportion, though not, I think, really so 

 powerful as those of their pretty little silvery rivals. All 

 the flying fish fly only of necessity, not from choice. They 



