FLYING FISH IN MFD WAY AND SWALF. 4.07 



of the Herring. . . . Although the Flying Fish excites so much 

 commiseration for its persecuted state, it is itself predaceous, 

 feeding chiefly on smaller fishes." Again, Smith's sea-angling 

 experiences in his voyage to Callao point to the same thing, 

 where an artificial gilt minnow proved irresistible as a bait.* 



The Ovaries. — As to sexual condition, each ovarian tube was 

 about four inches long, flaccid, but considerably contracted, like 

 that of a spent fish, as it proved to be. Although the great 

 bulk of the eggs had been extruded, there still remained a few 

 unripe ova, slightly varying in phase of development. Size of 

 the larger ones from a sixth to a third of a millimetre. Their 

 shape generally is globular, though some with tendency to 

 spheroidal outline. But the most notable feature consists in 

 the presence of an envelope or covering of a minute filamentary 

 kind, disposed somewhat spirally, the overlapping and inter- 

 crossings giving a partial reticular character. The fibrillar 

 arrangement may, in fact, be compared to a ball of twine, the 

 latter wound round in somewhat irregular though concentric 

 fashion. Our specimens, as examined under the microscope, in 

 a watery medium, seemed to imbibe the fluid and swell out the 

 fibres ; some of the terminal ends of these untwisting floated 

 free (see fig. 2, larger ova). 



Haeckel,t when a pupil of Johannes Miiller, some fifty years 

 ago, published an interesting paper fully illustrated, containing 

 his observations on the fibrillated ovarian eggs of members of 

 the Gar-Fish family, besides the Flying Fish, which contribution 

 KollikerJ duly commented on; this latter, however, was chiefly 

 their histological aspect. To Frank Buckland§ a certain credit 

 is due in pointing out how that at Heme Bay weir the " Gore- 

 bill's" eggs adhered to the sticks and stones by their grasping 



Barbara." An opposite opinion is given by Gervase Mathew, who says that 

 those the Hawaiians ( = Sandwich Islanders) catch, averaging lh lb. in weight, 

 " are rather dry and tasteless, but acceptable to any one who has been with- 

 out fish for a length of time " (see ' Zoologist,' 1873, p. 3740) ; Day (' British 

 Fishes,' ii.) alludes to them "As food — Inferior." 



* ' The Zoologist,' 1875, p. 4413. 

 - f " Eier der Scomberesoces," in Miiller's Archiv, 1855, pp. 23-31, 

 Taf. iv-v. 



I In ' Wurzburg Verhandl. Phys. med. Ges.' viii. (1858). 



§ 'Rep. Sea Fisheries,' 1879, Append, ii. 



