Fish that Walk and Fly
Everyland Nature Club
By
A. Hyatt Verrill
From Everyland, March 1916. Digitized by Doug Frizzle,
Mar. 2012.
FUNNY as it seems to think of
fish flying, yet it is stranger yet to think of fish walking on dry land! But there are plenty of fish that walk and still more
that fly.
Nowadays, when so many people
go South during the winter, many
readers of Everyland have probably
seen flying-fish and know how they
look from a distance.
Sometimes
but one or two are seen at once, while at other
times they rise from the
water in flocks of hundreds. They seem to sail rather
than to fly, and skip along,—touching a wave-crest here and there,—like a flat stone skipped across the water, their
wings whirring so rapidly as to be almost invisible.
In the
West Indian markets large numbers of the
flying-fish may be seen, for the
natives consider them a great
delicacy and catch them in nets at
night in immense numbers. If you examine these
captured flying-fish, you will find them
to be round-bodied, cigar-shaped creatures from
three or four inches to a foot or more in length; dark, steel-blue above, and
golden, silvery, or purple below, with immense side-fins covered with a
transparent membrane. These are the
"wings," and their size
and shape vary greatly with the
species. Although their power of
flight was evidently given them that
they might escape enemies in the sea, yet it often proves fatal, for various
sea-birds swoop down and seize them,
while flying, and the fishermen take
advantage of their habits to net them.
The fishing-boats go out
after dark and stretch a long net from
one boat to another in the form of a great semicircle. The other boats then
move toward the net, beating and
splashing the water, and the poor fish, alarmed at the
noise and disturbance, take refuse in flight only to blunder helplessly into the nets. Oftentimes flying-fish fall upon the decks of vessels, particularly at night, and it
is surprising to find how much force they
possess when moving through the air.
On one occasion, while traveling in a rowboat along the
coast after nightfall, one of these
fishes flew up and struck one of my colored boatmen on the
elbow. So great was the blow that the man was frightened almost to death.
Besides these tropical flying-fish there
are a number of other species which
have wing-like fins large and powerful enough to enable them
to fly for some distance, and many
of these are found in northern waters.
The commonest
of these are the
gurnards and sea-robins. In tropical seas these
fish abound and many of them are
brilliantly and wonderfully colored with red, blue, green, and purple.
Very different are the walking-fish, for, while the
flying-fish have their fins
developed into wings, the
walking-fish have gone as far in the
opposite direction and have their
fins transformed into feet. Some
walking-fish have never learned to come
out of the water, but crawl about on
the bottom
of the sea or among sea-weeds and other growths. Among these
are the odd blennies,—sculpin-like
fish with huge eyes and wide mouths which cause the
queer creatures to look like some
sort of a submarine toad. Still more frog-like in appearance is the toad-fish, while the
bat-fish hops about on its queer fin-feet and looks much like a brown bat that
has lost the use of its wings.
Oddest of all the American walking-fish is the
Gulf Stream fish or mouse-fish,—a curious, stumpy little chap so misshapen as
to look like a monstrosity. The eyes gaze skyward, the
mouth is turned up, the back is
humped, and the fins all turn
backward and terminate in regular toes or fingers. The color is dull brown and
yellow, while queer ribbon-like streamers are attached to the body and fins. These streamers and the color are of great value to the mouse-fish as they
live among the sargasso or gulfweed,
which has exactly the same colors
and form. Among the floating weeds the fish walks and crawls about, builds his nest,
and floats along in the lazy, warm Gulf Stream current, often finding himself and family far
from home
in the waters of our northern coast.
Another
class of walking-fish are more remarkable than any of these,
for they not only swim and walk
about under water, but actually forsake their
native element and travel about on land and even climb trees!
Some
species of South American catfish can also travel on land without trouble, and
run so rapidly through the grass and
underbrush that Prof. Agassiz was deceived into mistaking them for some
small mammal. When the rivers where these catfish live flow over their
banks and flood the near-by forests,
the fish climb up in the tree-tops to feed on the
white ants which build their nests
among the branches. Think of catfish
robbing ants' nests fifty feet above the
ground! In performing this remarkable feat the
fish show marvelous intelligence. A number of them
gather beneath a tree where the ants live and a few of their
number commence to climb the trunk. They ascend quite rapidly, and as soon as
the ants' nest is reached they at once commence
to devour the ants. Of course a
great many of the insects are
knocked off and fall to the water
and ground beneath, and here the
waiting fish gobble up the
unfortunate ants as fast as they
drop down.
These fish are called gobies
and are very similar to the blennies
in appearance, and live mainly in warm countries where they
often crawl out of water in large numbers and skip and play on the shore like lively kittens. In the countries where these
wonderful fish are found the shores
in many places are covered with low mangrove trees, and up these the
gobies climb in search of food. You can imagine what an odd sight it must be to
see a lot of goggle-eyed fish walking and hopping about on land and climbing up
trees in search of insects.
An
Indian fish which is found in fresh water not only climbs trees but marches
overland for long distances, traveling across high hills and wide, dry plains
from one river or lake to another. This fish, known as the
Anabas, travels by means of stiff spines on the
gill-covers and can live for a long time out of water, as within the head is a series of chambers where water is
stored for the fish to use in
breathing when on land.
Many
requests have come to as for Mrs.
Catty's Nature Parable, "What the
Grub Found Out" which was retold in March, 1915. We are reprinting this
story with Illustrations In an eight-page leaflet. It will sell at two cents
each or one dollar a hundred.
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