1889. ] Do Flying Fish Fly ? 647 
the case of young fish, from a-half to one and a-haif inches in 
length, many of which I saw leave their native element to essay 
the rarer medium, the strokes of the fins are continued through- 
out the short flight; and the resemblance between these tiny fin- 
flyers and flying insects is most striking. 
The course of the flight is generally in a straight or curved 
line; but on several occasions I have seen it abruptly changed, 
apparently by the aid of the tail, the lower lobe of which was 
brought for a moment into contact with the water. . 
In one instance I saw the course thus changed three times, at 
intervals of only a few seconds. The fish came out of the water 
only a few feet from the steamer, flew outward and backward, 
then, suddenly turning, came toward the steamer, striking the 
crest of a wave within a few feet of the same, it darted alongside, 
and again dipping its caudal lobe in the water, wheeled directly 
away from the boat and plunged into the ocean. In the majority 
of observed cases, where the tail was made to touch momentarily 
the water, the course was not changed, the tail appearing to act, 
as Dr. Kneeland has already remarked, like a spring for raising 
the fish. 
In the case of a breeze, the direction of flight, as a rule, was 
either against that of the wind, or formed a more or less acute 
angle with it; not unfrequently, however, the flight is with the 
wind, or at right angles to it. 
The longest flight observed lasted not less than forty seconds, 
and its extent was undoubtedly over eight hundred feet, and may 
have exceeded twelve hundred feet. This remarkably long flight 
began near the right side of the steamer and was performed in 
a long curve, which formed, at first, nearly a right angle with the 
boat, then moving directly against a gentle wind, but gradually 
turned backward, so as ‘finally to coincide nearly with the direc- 
tion of the wind. 
While the average flight does not perhaps exceed fifteen 
Seconds, nor extend above four or five hundred feet, yet I have 
observed numerous cases in which it was continued twenty to — 
thirty seconds, 
That this flight, executed in a horizontal plane, which, accord- 
ing to the concurrent testimony of all observers, is seldom raised 
above the surface of the water by more than two or three feet, 
Continued for ten to thirty or forty seconds, and extending a dis- 
