Ch61¥%. OF WV YING FIL BL. ime 
the inhabitants of water, who below keep pace with 
its aerial excurfion. Neither is it unfrequent that 
whole fhoals of them fall on board of fhips that 
navigate the feas of warm climates: it is therefore 
apparent, that nature in this creature hath fupplied 
it with inftruments that frequently bring it into that 
deftruction it ftrives to avoid, by having recourfe to 
an element unnatural to it. 
The antients were acquainted with this fpecies : 
Pliny mentions it under the name of Hirundo, and 
fpeaks of its flying faculty. It is probable that 
Oppian intended the fame by his Ques xeasdoves, OF 
the /wift fwallow fith. What Atheneus and the laft 
cited author mean by the Efoxoiros and Adwyis, is not 
fo evident: they affert it quitted the water and flept 
on the rocks, from whence it tumbled with precipita- 
tion when difturbed by the unfriendly birds: on thele 
accounts Icthyologifts feem to have made it fynony- 
mous with the flying fib. 
It refembles the herring in form of the body, but 
the back is flat: the fcales large and filvery: the 
dorfal fin is{mall, and placed near the tail : the pec- 
toral fins, the inftruments of flight, are almoft as 
long as the body: the tail is bifurcated, 
T 3 Genus 
Defer, 
