264 By Stream and Sea. 



which may be compared roughly, in shape and size, to -a 

 Christchurch mackerel (a small, sweet-eating description 

 much prized on the Hampshire coast), are, as we saw them 

 in flight, outspread at right-angles, and underneath you might 

 at times catch sight of the second set of smaller wing-fins, 

 which are thought to have more to do with the actual flight 

 than the others. The upper wings (we may so term them 

 for convenience) were a dark brown in some, a reddish 

 brown in others, beautifully speckled in many, while the 

 tiniest varieties displayed brown fringes to wings which 

 differed but slightly from the grey-coloured back. The 

 twinkle of these singular membranes as the sun caught them 

 was a very beautiful sight. 



No less beautiful was the method of flight. I am aware 

 that some naturalists deny that the flying fish flies at all, deny- 

 that it flaps its wing-fins, deny or doubt that it has the 

 power of changing its course. If rising five or six feet out of 

 the water, skimming now up, now down, wheeling first to the 

 right and then to the left, and sustaining these movements 

 for a distance of a hundred yards or more, do not constitute 

 flying, there is no meaning in words. The fish did all this 

 unmistakably, and in their flight they repeatedly turned over 

 slightly on one side until the silvery white of their bellies 

 flashed again. Their sweep from the trough of the sea, paral- 

 lel with the side and over the summit of the billows, forcibly 

 reminded one of the joyous return of a martin to the house- 

 hold eaves. Sometimes two or three fishes would be in 

 company ; sometimes a numerous shoal would get up from 

 close under the ship's bows, scattering like a covey of par- 

 tridges, and with a patter-patter that recalled the wild fowl 

 roused from their reedy retreat by the margin of some inland 

 lake. They were probably frightened by the approach of the 

 noisy steamer, and dispersed beyond what is usual when 



