[Three Hundred Animals Contents]
IS slender and long with a large staring eye. The body is in shape, scales, and colour like one of our mullets. The fins on each side of the back are so long and spread so as to answer the purpose of wings, and, aided by them, he flies nearly to the distance of a gun-shot before he touches the water, and when he has slightly dipt, in order to rest himself, mounts up again; a curious manœuvre, by which he often escapes the jaws of the Dolphins, which swim rapidly in pursuit of him. He is a native of the Mediterranean, and is found in many other seas in warm climates. This curious creature, as we may easily perceive, is the link between the fish and the birds, as the auk or penguin unites the inhabitants of the air with those of the sea, in the contemplative mind of the naturalist.