h into the beaks of gannets, boobies,
albatrosses, and other petty tyrants of the sky.

Much sympathy has been felt--or at all events expressed--for these
pretty and apparently innocent little victims. But, alas! our sympathy
receives a sad shock, when it becomes known that the flying-fish is
himself one of the petty tyrants of the ocean,--being, like his near
congener, the pike, a most ruthless little destroyer and devourer of any
fish small enough to go down his gullet.

Besides the two _genera_ of flying-fish above described, there are
certain other marine animals which are gifted with a similar power of
sustaining themselves for some seconds in the air. They are often seen
in the Pacific and Indian oceans, rising out of the water in shoals,
just like the _Exoceti_: and, like them, endeavouring to escape from the
albicores and bonitos that incessantly pursue them. These creatures are
not fish in the true sense of the word, but "molluscs," of the genus
_Loligo_; and the name given to them by the whalers of the Pacific is
that of "Flying Squid."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A CHEERING CLOUD.

The particular species of flying-fish that had fallen into the clutches
of the two starving castaways upon the raft was the _Exocetus evolans_,
or "Spanish flying-fish" of mariners,--a well-known inhabitant of the
warmer latitudes of the Atlantic. Its body was of a steel-blue, olive
and silvery white underneath, with its large pectoral fins (its wings)
of a powdered grey colour. It was one of the largest of its kind, being
rather over twelve inches in length, and nearly a pound in weight.

Of course, it afforded but a very slight meal for two hungry stomachs,--
such as were those of Ben Brace and his boy companion. Still it helped
to strengthen them a little; and its opportune arrival upon the raft--
which they could not help regarding as providential--had the further
effect of rendering them for a time more cheerful and hopeful.

It is not necessary to say that they ate the creature without cooking
it; and although under ordinary circumstances this might be regarded as
a hardship, neither was at that moment in the mood to be squeamish.
They thought the dish dainty enough. It was its quantity--not the
quality--that failed to give satisfaction.

Indeed the flying-fish is (when cooked, of course) one of the most
delicious of morsels,--a good deal resembling the common herring when
caught freshly, and dressed in a proper mann