ON THE FLIGHT OF THE FLYING-FISH. 475 
once or twice after short intervals of the sailing movement. In 
the case of young fish from a half to one and a half inches in 
length, many of which I saw leave their native element to essay 
the rarer medium, the strokes of the fins are continued through- 
out the short flight; and the resemblance between these tiny 
fin-flyers and flying insects is most striking. 
The course of the flight is generally in a straight or curved 
line ; but on several occasions I have seen it abruptly changed, 
apparently by the aid of the tail, the lower lobe of which was 
brought for a moment into contact with the water. 
In one instance I saw the course thus changed three times at 
intervals of only a few seconds. The fish came out of the water 
only a few feet from the steamer, flew outward and backward, 
then, suddenly turning, came towards the steamer, striking the 
_ crest of a wave within a few feet of the same, it darted alongside, 
and again dipping its caudal lobe in the water, wheeled directly 
away from the boat and plunged into the ocean. In the majority 
of observed cases, where the tail was made to touch momentarily 
the water, the course was not changed, the tail appearing to act, 
as Dr. Kneeland has already remarked, like a spring for raising 
. the fish.* 
In the case of a breeze, the direction of flight, as a rule, was 
either against that of the wind, or formed a more or less acute 
angle with it ; not unfrequently, however, the flight is with the 
wind, or at right angles to it. 
The longest flight observed lasted not less than forty seconds, 
and its extent was undoubtedly over eight hundred feet, and may 
have exceeded twelve hundred feet. This remarkably long flight 
began near the right side of the steamer, and was performed in 
a long curve, which formed at first nearly a right angle with the 
boat, then moving directly against a gentle wind, but gradually 
turned backward, so as finally to coincide nearly with the 
direction of the wind. 
While the average flight does not perhaps exceed fifteen 
seconds, nor extend about four or five hundred feet, yet I have 
observed numerous cases in which it was continued twenty to 
thirty seconds. 
That this flight, executed in a horizontal plane, which, accord-: 
ing to the concurrent testimony of all observers,-is seldom raised 
* Proc. Boston Nat. Hist. Soc., 1872, p. 138. 
