344 Recreations of a Sportsman 



blindly in every direction. The equatorial Pa- 

 cific form is large and powerful, and natives when 

 wading at times employ baskets as shields to 

 ward off the headlong flight of the fish. 



By far the most remarkable flier among these 

 interesting fishes is the one found on the Pacific 

 coast, known as the California flying fish, Exo- 

 ccetus Calif orniensis. It is also the largest of 

 the clan, a veritable giant, eighteen or nineteen 

 inches in length. I have had unusual opportu- 

 nities for observing this fish during its flights, 

 and my experiences in attempting to photograph 

 it in air, to illustrate beyond peradventure the 

 correct method of flight, were many and varied. 



Few questions in the field of popular natural 

 history have attracted more attention than the 

 one, whether the flying fish flies in a literal sense 

 and flaps its wings. Naturalists have been ar- 

 rayed against brothers in science. Laymen have 

 defied professional observers, and the war is 

 still on, on the very borders of the western sea 

 where the great flying fish is best known. Gosse, 

 the weil-known English naturalist, after a care- 

 ful scrutiny of the Atlantic forms and one com- 

 mon in the Mediterranean, became convinced 

 that they flew, moving the wings after the manner 

 of birds. Bennett, a countryman of Gosse, who 

 studied the fliers of the South American coast, 

 came to an opposite conclusion. Humboldt was 

 positive that they were the literal birds of the 



