404 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



&c. — so-called Greater Flying Fish, E. volitans, or kindred. But 

 there may rest uncertainty whether all the latter have been fish 

 that would rigidly come under the specific denomination of 

 E. volitans ? According to our interpretation a third British 

 kind may be added — the Streaked Flying Fish, E. lineatus — 

 that is to say, if this and all the previous identifications are 

 substantial. 



This seems rather an open kind of verdict, but under the 

 circumstances unavoidable ; for when what is supposed to con- 

 stitute positive specific distinction is put to the test, sharpness 

 of definition gives way. When such authorities on the group as 

 Gunther,* Lutken,t Jordan, and EvermannJ are not in concord 

 with regard to the above and other species, the matter may be 

 regarded as still sub judice.§ 



This Kent specimen was a female, about fifteen inches in 

 extreme length (tail-tips faulty), and in weight turned the scale 

 slightly over eight ounces. Colour herring-like. The dorsum 

 blackish, or rather of an intense bluey grey, this shading to a 

 lighter tint or pale blue of iridescent character towards the 

 lateral line. Head dark above, but the sides and lower parts of 

 gill-covers right back to root of pectoral fin, as also abdomen, of 

 a silvery white. The general expanse of the large, wing-like 

 pectoral, when spread out, greyish, with post-inferior margin 

 darker. But the outer prominent surface of the rays, markedly 

 their basal ends, are silvery ; so that when they are approxi- 

 mated, fin closed on body, there appears a lengthened patch of 

 iridescent sheen passing from the shoulder across the fin, parallel 

 to its long axis. The caudal forks, the dorsal, the anal, and the 

 ventral fin pale or greyish ; the ventral, however, most con- 

 spicuous on its inside superficies, having the middle rays of 

 darker tint less appreciable on the external surface when the fin 

 is expanded. Irregular traces of a series of minute pigmentary 



* ' Cat. Fishes in Brit. Mus.' vol. vi. (1866). 



-j- " Vidensk med. Naturh. Foren" (1876), and " Contr. diagn. Poiss. 

 Volan." Journ. Zool. tome vi. (1877). 



| " Fishes of North America," Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus. pt. i. (1896). 



§ Smitt, in his ' Scandinavian Fishes,' i. p. 58, makes an important 

 observation, and arrives at the conclusion that E. lineatus is identical with 

 Linna^us's E. volitans, and even hints that E. bahiensis may be included 

 with them as one species. 



