426 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1778. 



coloured paint ; a part of which, on squeezing out the vitreous humour, some- 

 times floats on its surface. On removing this, a black soft painting appeared, 

 which in the bottom of the globe, and some way round the entrance of the 

 nerve, had a reddish cast, or streaks of red, buried in it : these were masses of 

 fine blood vessels, which had probably sprung from the small perforation before- 

 mentioned. In the boiled eye, these paints were not much altered, except the 

 red part, which, like all coagulated blood, was now become dusky. On the 

 back part of the iris, or rather the posterior part of the aqueous humour, it was 

 only covered over with the black coloured pigment. The muscles of the eyes 

 were remarkably strong, broad, and distinct ; for in small fishes they are in 

 general so pappy and tender, that it is very difficult to examine them with 

 accuracy. 



Their throat or swallow is formed of an oblong, rounded protuberance on the 

 back part of the fauces, and a receiving hollowed substance on the fore part, 

 both plentifully armed with small tenter hooks, pointing backward. They seem 

 to have no remarkable dilatation in the canal of the bowels, in the manner of a 

 stomach ; but one tube passes directly from the mouth to the anus, on the upper 

 or anterior part of which lies the heart ; on the lower or posterior the liver and 

 gall-bladder ; and on the sides of this last are situated the rows, which consist of 

 2 lobes. On each side, and at some little distance from the heart, is a pale ash- 

 coloured substance, somewhat resembling the lungs of small birds, which seem 

 to join at the back, and to run united all along the hollow depression there as 

 far as the anus. These parts were so very tender, and so little fit for examina- 

 tion with the hands or knife, that it was impossible to discover their use, or to 

 trace any communication they might have with the throat. Nostrils they have, 

 and I could pass a hog's bristle through them, by the palate, into the mouth. 



In the recent ones the abdomen was near -j full of air. At the basis of the 

 skull I found 2 little flat snow-coloured bones, irregular and rough, such as we 

 find in cod and many other sea fishes. On examining the wings after being 

 some time exposed to the air, I find they become so dry, and the fine thin inter- 

 vening membrane so rigid, that it is difficult to expand them without violence, at 

 the same time that the motion of the whole wing backward and forward is nothing 

 impaired ; this circumstance, which only happens after the fish has been a con- 

 siderable time out of the water, may have given rise to the common tradition 

 among sea-faring people, that it can fly no longer than its wings are wet, and 

 that in its flight it skims along the surface and dips, skims and dips again, with 

 no other purpose than to moisten and keep them in a flying trim. That in the 

 course of one flight, at least once, twice, or perhaps thrice, it slightly touches 

 the water is certain ; but the whole is performed in so small a space of time, 



