250 



FISHES. 



Frederick II., Oct. 5, 1230 ;" it was consequently at least two hundred and sixty-seven 

 years old. The growth of these fish is very rapid : the first year they are often ten or 

 eleven inches in length, and in the second fifteen. 



The Sea-Pike (Esox bdone)* also known as the Gar-Fish, Spit- Fish, and Bill-Fish, 

 belongs to this family. 



The Flying Fishes (Exocetus) f belong to the same family as the pikes, 

 and are recognized, at first sight, by the excessive length of their pectoral 

 fins, which are long enough to serve them as wings and to sustain them for a 

 few seconds in the air. They swim in shoals, and are pursued by legions of 

 voracious enemies, to escape from which they spring out of the water, but 

 soon fall again, because their wings only serve them as a parachute. While 



FIG. 264. THE FLYING FISH. 



on their aerial course, they often become the prey of sea-birds. It is a 

 beautiful sight on a clear day to see them sparkling in the air, with silvery 

 brightness, or rushing from the water with an audible rustling sound as they 

 spread out their large pellucid wings or fins in a new element, their brilliant 

 purple backs gleaming and their sides blazing like molten metal under the 

 dazzling light of a tropical sun. The greatest length of time they remain in 

 the air is thirty-two seconds, and their longest flight from 200 to 250 yards. 



The Siluroids differ from all other abdominal Malacoptery- 

 gians in their want of true scales. The skin is naked, or furnished 

 with bony plates. The dorsal and pectoral fins have a long ar- 

 ticulated spine for the first fin-ray, and there is a small adipose 

 or soft fin towards the hinder part of the back. One species, 



belone, a needle or spear-head. f e/c, ek, outside ; KOIT-TJ, coite, a bed: 



so called because these fishes were supposed, to sleep on land. 



