62 S T. J A G O. 
years ago, as it is mentioned by Pliny to be a fact indisput- 
ably established long before his time. 
For wise and good purposes, and no doubt with a beneficial 
design, though not comprehended and on that account too 
often arraigned by weak presumptuous man, the same system 
of mutual destruction prevails among the animals of the deep 
as among those of the land. The dorado, the bonetta, and 
the albecor, are prey for the ah-devouring shark ; and these, 
in their turn, are the determined enemies of the flying fish ; 
and though nature has bountifully supplied the latter with a 
pair of wing-like fins, which, by enabling it to spring into the 
air, sometimes assist its escape from its hungry pursuers, 
yet there are so many enemies among the feathered race 
ready to souse upon it in its new element, as the phaeton, 
the pelican, the procellaria, diomedea, and a number of 
others, that in taking this flight it may justly be said 
Incldit in Syllam cuplens vitare Charybdim." 
The flying fish seems not to be endued with the discretion- 
ary power of altering the direction of its flight from that of a 
straight hne, nor of continuing many seconds of time out of 
the water. Sometimes a whole' shoal will fly against a ship, 
and many of them drop upon the deck ; which led a pious 
missionary to observe, that Providence had created flying fish 
for the support of those of the holy brotherhood who might 
have occasion to cross the ocean during Lent 
