ON THE FLIGHT OF THE FLYING-FISH. 471 
fish with guns is carried on in Oude, and occasionally elsewhere. 
This is more generally employed for the Snake-headed Walking- 
fishes (Ophiocephalide), which are frequently seen floating on the 
surface of the water as if asleep. They may be approached very 
closely, but the game usually sinks when killed, and has to be 
dived for or otherwise obtained. Cross-bows are also employed 
for a similar purpose in Malabar. In Mysore, observed the native 
officials of the Nagar division, fish are taken by nets, traps, hooks, 
cloths, by the hand, by baskets of different shapes, by damming 
and draining off the water, by shooting, by striking them with 
clubs, with swords, or with choppers, by weirs, and by various 
descriptions of fixed engines; in short, by poaching practices of 
every kind, as well as by fishing with rods and lines, and poisoning 
pools of water. Even fishes’ eggs do not escape the general hunt 
to which the persecuted finny tribes are subjected in these days, 
the ova being collected and made into cakes, which are considered 
great delicacies. 
’ 
CorrIGENDA.—Page 431, ten lines from bottom, for “ Roaches” read ‘“ Loaches.’ 
Page 436, top line, after “not” add “ only.”—F. Day. 
ON THE FLIGHT OF THE FLYING-FISH. 
By C. O. Wuitman.* 
Amone those animals that enjoy the much-envied power 
of flight, none has elicited such universal interest and comment 
as that anomalous member of the finny tribe, the Flying-fish. 
This fish owes its generic name to a curious belief which is said 
to have been current among the ancients. They supposed that 
the Flying-fish—‘‘ sea swallows” they called them—left the 
ocean at night and slept on shore, to avoid the attacks of their 
marine enemies. From this habit of ‘‘ sleeping out ’’ they were 
called Hxoceti. 
Besides Hxocetus, which includes between forty and fifty 
different species, there is a genus of Flying-fish called Dacty- 
lopterus (finger-winged), from the fact that the fin-rays extend, 
finger-like, beyond the margin of the fins. This genus, popularly 
named the Flying-gurnard, is represented by comparatively few 
* From the ‘ American Naturalist’ for September. Slightly abridged. 
