springing from just behind the gills, and extending backwards almost to the tail, set it, as they rapidly quiver, in a soft and silvery haze. It is, of course, the pectoral fins that thus perform the office of wings, and by moving them and steering a course, their owner flies as truly, for the time, as does either a bird or a bat. Those who deny this—the naturalists aforesaid—say that the flying-fish never go for a greater distance, without touching the water, than the initial impetus of their leap out of it carries them to. Now the swim-bladder of the flying-fish is so large that when the creature distends it, as it has the power to do, it occupies almost the whole cavity of the body, which thus becomes full of air, and, besides this, it has another sort of bladder in its mouth, which it can inflate through the gills. Thus it is all air, and everybody knows how difficult it is to throw a light, bladdery thing to any distance—a stone goes much farther. What sort of impetus must that be, which can, in this instance, throw it to 500 or 1,000 yards, and is it not more likely that a small fish (it is only about a foot long), whose fins have become developed so as to support it in the air, and whose body has been turned into an air-sac, should have been enabled to fly, rather than leap, these wonderful distances? When I first saw flying-fish myself, I felt quite angry at the nonsense I had been made to believe about them, through the natural history books, and from that moment I resolved that I would be as cautious in trusting to what are called sober statements, as to statements that may seem to be exaggerated. Certainly it is the sailors, here, and not the scientists, who best know what they are talking about, and so, as they have seen a great deal more of flying-fish than I have, instead of repeating my own opinion, I will end the subject, and this chapter, with that of one who, to all the advantages of a sailor, adds those of being a careful observer and a very picturesque writer. At any rate, I don’t see how he can have been mistaken in such matters as these, and, if not, there ought to be an end, at last, of that long-enduring fallacy that the flying-fish cannot fly.