Oh. XXTT.] flight OF FLYING-FISH. 377 



absolutely necessary to account for all the phenomena of 

 their flight, I was disposed to believe that a rapid vibration 

 existed, similar in character to that of the wings of a fly ; 

 and I sometimes thought I could detect something of this 

 kind ia the change of prismatic colours which played upon 

 their wings ia the sun-light. But on one of the occasions 

 above referred to, on which a flying-fish escaping from a 

 Bonito flew towards the ship, I watched its approach, and 

 saw it ultimately fall into, the water immediately beneath 

 me ; and I was absolutely certaia that the wings were in a 

 state of perfect rest. 



The opportunity of watching the evolutions of a somewhat 

 larger species in the Atlantic, however, at last, I believe, 

 supplied me with the clue which I sought. I then became 

 conviuced that every flying-fish, as it leaves the water, has 

 its wiags ia a state of rapid vibration, — not so rapid as that 

 the eye cannot follow them however, — and thus it gains an 

 impulse in a horizontal direction. As soon as it is thus fairly 

 launched, the wings assume a state of rest, somewhat in the 

 position of those of a pigeon in the act of alighting, and thus 

 they continue until the fish at length drops into the water. 

 But when it meets, and is struck by, the crest of a wave, if 

 it emerges from it immediately, as frequently happens, it does 

 so with a similar vibration of the wings to that with which 

 it first left the water; and each time it strikes a wave a 

 new vibration succeeds, as though the contact of the water 

 produced an automatic vibration of the wings which kept 

 them above the surface. Each contact with the water, then, 

 is followed by a vibration of the wings, producing a fresh 

 impetus ; and in their lengthened flights over smooth water, 

 I early remarked that they occasionally touched the water in 

 their progress, the touch being probably provocative of a 



