314 FISH OUT OF WATER 



leave the water when pursued by their enemies, or when 

 frightened by the rapid approach of a big steamer. So 

 swiftly do they fly, however, that they can far outstrip a 

 ship going at the rate of ten knots an hour ; and I have 

 often watched one keep ahead of a great Pacific liner under 

 full steam for many minutes together in quick successive 

 flights of three or four hundred feet each. Oddly enough, 

 they can fly further against the wind than before it a fact 

 acknowledged even by the spectacled Germans themselves, 

 and very hard indeed to reconcile with the orthodox belief 

 that they are not flying at all, but only jumping. I don't 

 know whether the flying gurnards are good eating or not ; 

 but the silvery flying fish are caught for market (sad dese- 

 cration of the poetry of nature !) in the Windward Islands, 

 and when nicely fried in egg and bread-crumb are really 

 quite as good for practical purposes as smelts or whiting or 

 any other prosaic European substitute. 



On the whole, it will be clear, I think, to the impartial 

 reader from this rapid survey that the helplessness and 

 awkwardness of a fish out of water has been much ex- 

 aggerated by the thoughtless generalisation of unscientific 

 humanity. Granting, for argument's sake, that most fish 

 prefer the water, as a matter of abstract predilection, to 

 the dry land, it must be admitted per contra that many 

 fish cut a much better figure on terra firma than most of 

 their critics themselves would cut in mid-ocean. There 

 are fish that wriggle across country intrepidly with the 

 dexterity and agility of the most accomplished snakes ; 

 there are fish that walk about on open sand-banks, semi- 

 erect on two legs, as easily as lizards ; there are fish that 

 hop and skip on tail and fins in a manner that the celebrated 

 jumping frog himself might have observed with envy ; and 

 there are fish that fly through the air of heaven with a 

 grace and swiftness that would put to shame innumerable 



