One of the main-topmen was coming up the quarter-deck ladder at the moment, when the flying-fish, entering the port, struck the astonished mariner on the temple, knocked him off the step, and very nearly laid him sprawling.
I was once in a prize, a low Spanish schooner, not above two feet and a-half out of the water, when we used to pick up flying-fish enough about the decks in the morning to give us a capital breakfast.

They are not unlike whitings to the taste, though rather firmer, and very dry.

They form, I am told, a considerable article of food for the negroes in the harbours of the West Indies.

The method of catching them at night is thus described:--In the middle of the canoe a light is placed on the top of a pole, towards which object it is believed these fish always dart, while on both sides of the canoe a net is spread to a considerable distance, supported by out-riggers above the surface of the water; the fish dash at the light, pass it, and fall into the net on the other side.
Shortly after observing the cluster of flying-fish rise out of the water, we discovered two or three dolphins ranging past the ship, in all their beauty, and watched with some anxiety to see one of those aquatic chases of which our friends of the Indiamen had been telling us such wonderful stories.

We had not long to wait; for the ship, in her progress through the water, soon put up another shoal of these little things, which, as the others had done, took their flight directly to windward.