Abstract
I HAVE on frequent occasions (in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean) carefully observed with a field-glass (× 8) the supposed “flight” of flying-fish, and have always concluded that the “leap and glide” theory is the correct one, with one or two modifications. Dr. J. McNamara, in NATURE for June 3, p. 421, cites five facts in support of the theory of true flight, but I may point out that all these five facts can be otherwise interpreted. Flying-fish undoubtedly leap out of the water and gain their initial impetus by tail action, and when out of the water the pectoral fins serve as planes. While gliding the fish can not only renew its impetus to a limited extent by an occasional flick of its tail against the crest of a wave, but, as your correspondent says, can also change the direction of its glide. I have, however, never observed a fish “come back in a direction opposite to the direction in which it set out,” and I am tolerably certain that it could not do this without re-immersion in the water, unless perhaps a strong wind were blowing in this opposite direction. Flying-fish can certainly rise and fall during the glide, but this, as well as change of direction, can be easily explained by assuming inclinations of the planes of the fins—a very different process from actual “wing”-flapping sufficient to cause flight. The fins can, like those of most fishes, move on their bases, but I fail to understand how, in the absence of the required musculature, it can possibly be supposed that the fins show “rapid movement, as in the case of hovering flies and humming-birds.” If seagulls can glide for hundreds of yards, rise and fall, and change direction without wing-flapping, why not flying-fish? In gliding the outlines of the pectoral fins naturally appear to be indistinct, because, compared with the rest of the body, the fins are thin and irregular in outline on their posterior edge.
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WOODLAND, W. The “Flight” of Flying-fish. Nature 105, 455 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105455a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105455a0
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