wo BISHES. 629 
forming a sort of parachute (Fig. 397), which sustains it when it 
leaps out of the water. Several species are known. 
All Nature seems to conspire against these singular creatures, 
while they have been gifted with the double power of swimming and 
flying. They only escape from the Bonitas, and other voracious 
fishes, which pursue them on the bosom of the sea, to expose them- 
selves to the attacks of the inhabitants of the air. A crowd of sea- 
fowl, such as frigate-birds, the albatross, and the gulls, carry on a 
bloody war with them when they venture on flight. Enemies thus 
pursue the unhappy fish whatever element it betakes itself to. Never- 
theless it passes from one element to the other with an energy which 
frequently defeats the attacks of its enemies. When it leaps from the 
sea to the height of five or six feet, it sustains itself for several hundred 
feet, even changing its direction. In its flight it may be compared to 
that of the flying dragon; the popular name given to it is said to be 
derived from the grunting noise they make on being taken out of the 
water. 
Here we may also mention the singular family of the Anabatide. 
In the fishes of this family the superior pharyngeal bones are divided 
into numerous and irregular little leaflets, which form numerous cells 
situated under the operculum, which again serve to retain a certain 
quantity of water. This water preserves the gills, moreover, when the 
animal is on dry land, which permits them to live on shore, where they 
frequently contrive to creep over great distances in search of water. 
The genus Azadas, from dvaBaivw, to ascend, possesses this peculiarity 
of organisation in a remarkable degree ; the Climbing Perch (A. 
scandens) is enabled to leave the rivers and marshes and little water- 
courses of Borneo and Java, and other islands of the Indian Archi 
pelago, and creep through the herbage or along the ground by means 
of inflexions of their bodies, and by the dentation of their opercula, 
and by the spines of their fins. This fact, although only recently 
acquiesced in by modern naturalists, was well known to the ancients, 
and has been recorded by Theophrastus. 
The great family of the Mackerels, or Scombertde, is the most 
important one in the order, comprehending some of the fishes most 
useful to man, from their size, the excellence of their flesh, ard their 
abundance. The Tunny (Zhynnus vulgaris), the Bonita (Zhynnus 
peamys), and the Mackerel (Scomber scombrus), have yielded, from the 
remotest antiquity, immense supplies of human food, both in the fresh 
and preserved state. 
The tunny, while resembling the mackerel in many respects in its 
general form, is rounder, and attains a much larger size, being some- 
