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After wee had doubled it in March following wee directed our course for the Iland of Santa Helena, and arriued there the third day of Aprill, where we staied to our great comfort nineteene dayes: in which meane space some one man of vs tooke thirtie goodly Congers in one day, and other rockie fishe and some Bonitos.

We very frequently saw the bonitos also, who were pursuing them, endeavour to raise themselves above the water, but they seldom succeeded in raising more than their head.

The central and intertropical parts of the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, and Radiata, and with their devourers the flying- fish, and again with their devourers the bonitos and albicores; I presume that the numerous lower pelagic animals feed on the Infusoria, which are now known, from the researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in the open ocean: but on what, in the clear blue water, do these Infusoria subsist?

The larger are somewhat like red gurnards, and are said to prey on their smaller cousins, which are also pursued by bonitos, albicores, and dolphins of various species, as well as by numerous sea-birds.

Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes.

Shoals of porpoises, albacores, bonitos, and other gregarious fishes will appear in the same place, each kind in pursuit of its favourite prey, while sharks, threshers, and sword-fish, accompanied by their "pilots" and "suckers," though in lesser numbers, here also abound, from the very abundance of the species on which these sea-monsters subsist "Flocks" of flying-fish sparkle in the sun with troops of bonitos gliding watchful below, while above them the sky will sometimes be literally clouded with predatory birds, gulls, boobies, gannets, tropic and frigate-birds, albatrosses, and a score of other kinds but little known, and as yet undescribed by the naturalist.

"Could your eyes pierce through the surface, you would see some savage bonitos or dolphins pursuing the hapless fish who visit the air, not for amusement, but in the hopes of escaping from their persecutors." Just then a large covey was seen to rise abeam close to the ship.

The evaporation caused by the blazing sun of these tropics made the water a deeper blue than in cooler latitudes, as in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans the greens are almost as vivid as the blues about the line. I watched the thousand flying-fishes' fast leaps through the air, and caught gleams of the swift bonitos whose pursuit made birds of their little brothers.

They rise to escape their pursuers, the bonitos, which rush after them, showing their noses above the water now and then. But the poor flying-fish have their enemies above the waters as well as under them; for they no sooner rise than they risk becoming the prey of the ocean birds, which are always hovering about and ready to pounce upon them. It is a case of "out of the frying-pan into the fire."

Leaving these islands, and approaching the line, they were sometimes becalmed for a long time together, and at other times vexed with tempests. At all times, when the weather would permit, they had plenty of dolphins, bonitos and flying-fish; several of the last dropping in their flight on the decks, unable to rise again, because their finny wings wanted moisture.