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Promoting Natural & Cultural History
TYPE: | Image |
DATE: | 1747 |
ARTIST: | Carl Johan Gethe (1728-1765) |
AUTHOR: | Viveka Hansen |
CAT/REF NUMBER: | M 280: Tab. IV & p. 24. |
COLLECTION(S): | Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm (National Library of Sweden), Sweden. |
REFERENCE(S): | • ‘Dagbok hållen på Resan till Ost Indien, Begynt den 18 octobr: 1746 och Slutad den 20 Juni 1749’. |
ADDED: | 05/12/2018 |
iFELLOW: | Viveka Hansen |
JOURNALS ETC: | Linnaeus Apostles Global Science & Adventure, Volume 7, Page 51 |
CONTENT: | This illustration of a flying fish (top) is included in the East India traveller Carl Johan Gethe’s journal, noted as one of several common species in the Tropics or ‘Zona Torrida’ along the sailing route off the coast of West Africa. The 19-year old Gethe’s coloured depiction being a good comparison to the naturalist and ship’s chaplain Pehr Osbeck’s description a few years later, on 30 March in 1751: ‘The flying-fishes (Exocætus volitans), which generally live about the tropics, and especially in the Western ocean, now began to appear near the ship. They have many enemies both in water and air: in the former they are pursued by the Scomber Thynnus, or tunny, by the Scomber Pelamis, or bonnet-fish, and by other fishes; in the latter, the Phaëton æthereus, or tropic-bird, the Pelecanus Piscator, or booby, and the Pelicanus Aquilus, or man of war, are their enemies…’ |