All the flying fish fly
only of necessity, not from choice. They leave the water when pursued
by their enemies, or when frightened by the rapid approach of a big
steamer. So swiftly do they fly, however, that they can far outstrip a
ship going at the rate of ten knots an hour; and I have often watched
one keep ahead of a great Pacific liner under full steam for many
minutes together in quick successive flights of three or four hundred
feet each. Oddly enough, they can fly further against the wind than
before it--a fact acknowledged even by the spectacled Germans
themselves, and very hard indeed to reconcile with the orthodox belief
that they are not flying at all, but only jumping. I don't know whether
the flying gurnards are good eating or not; but the silvery flying fish
are caught for market (sad desecration of the poetry of nature!) in the
Windward Islands, and when nicely fried in egg and bread-crumb are
really quite as good for practical purposes as smelts or whiting or any
other prosaic European substitute.
On the whole, it will be clear, I think, to the impartial reader from
this rapid survey that the helplessness and awkwardness of a fish out of
water has been much exaggerated by the thoughtless generalisation of
unscientific humanity. Granting, for argument's sake, that most fish
prefer the water, as a matter of abstract predilection, to the dry land,
it must be admitted _per contra_ that many fish cut a much better figure
on terra firma than most of their critics themselves would cut in
mid-ocean.
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