It is found in the West Indies and across the Isthmus as far as Hawaii. Many other species, mostly belonging to _Tylosurus_, abound in the warm seas of all regions. _Tylosurus ferox_ is the long tom of the Australian markets. _Potamorrhaphis_ with the dorsal fin low is found in Brazilian rivers. A few fossil species are referred to _Belone_, _Belone flava_ from the lower Eocene being the earliest. =The Flying-fishes: Exocœtidæ.=—The family of _Exocœtidæ_ includes the flying-fishes and several related forms more or less intermediate between these and the garfishes. In these fishes the teeth are small and nearly equal and the maxillary is separate from the premaxillary. The third upper pharyngeal is much enlarged and there are no zygapophyses to the vertebræ. The skippers (_Scombresox_) have slender bodies, pointed jaws, and, like the mackerel, a number of detached finlets behind dorsal and anal, although in other respects they show no affinity to the mackerel. The common skipper, or saury (_Scombresox saurus_), is found on both shores of the North Atlantic swimming in large schools at the surface of the water, frequently leaping for a little distance like the flying-fish. They are pursued by the mackerel-like fishes, as the tunny or bonito, and sometimes by porpoises. According to Mr. Couch, the skippers, when pursued, "mount to the surface in multitudes and crowd on each other as they press forward. When still more closely pursued, they spring to the height of several feet, leap over each other in singular confusion, and again sink beneath. Still further urged, they mount again and rush along the surface, by repeated starts, for more than one hundred feet, without once dipping beneath or scarcely seeming to touch the water. At last the pursuer springs after them, usually across their course, and again they all disappear together. Amidst such multitudes—for more than twenty thousand have been judged to be out of the water together—some must fall a prey to the enemy; but so many hunting in company, it must be long before the pursuers abandon. From inspection we could scarcely judge the fish to be capable of such flights, for the fins, though numerous, are small, and the pectoral far from large, though the angle of their articulation is well adapted to raise the fish by the direction of their motions to the surface." A similar species, _Cololabis saira_, with the snout very much shorter than in the Atlantic skipper, is the _Samma_ of the fishermen of Japan. The hard-head (_Chriodorus atherinoides_) has no beak at all and its tricuspid incisor teeth are fitted to feed on plants. In this genus, as in the flying-fishes, there are no finlets. The hard-head is an excellent food-fish abundant about the Florida Keys but not yet seen elsewhere. [Illustration: FIG. 166.—Saury, _Scombresox saurus_ (L.). Wood's Hole. ] [Illustration: FIG. 167.—Halfbeak, _Hyporhamphus unifasciatus_ (Ranzani). Chesapeake Bay. ]