FISH IN GENERAL. 20 



sion of their emotions ; their ears on every side inclosed 

 within the bones of the cranium, destitute of an external 

 conch, without an internal cochlea, and being composed only 

 of several sacks and membranous channels, can be scarcely 

 sufficient to cause the loudest sounds to be heard. They 

 have in reality but small occasion for the sense of hearing, 

 being condemned to reside in the empire of silence, where 

 all around is mute. Their eyesight would have but little 

 exercise, in the depths they inhabit, if the large proportions 

 of the visual organ in most species, did not obviate the scan- 

 tiness of the light; but still the eye can scarcely change its 

 direction, still less alter its dimensions, so as to be accom- 

 modated to the distances of objects ; the iris can neither be 

 dilated nor contracted, the pupil always remaining the same, 

 under every degree of light. No tear moistens, no eyelid 

 shelters or wipes the surface ; it is, in fish, only an indifferent 

 representative of that beautiful and animated organ which is 

 found in the superior classes of animals. 



Compelled to subsist by the chase of prey, which swims 

 likewise with more or less rapidity ; having no means of 

 securing it but by deglutition, delicate sensations of taste 

 would have been useless, even if nature had bestowed that 

 quality upon them : but their tongue, almost immoveable, 

 often wholely osseous, or beset with dental plates, and receiv- 

 ing only few and slender nerves, sufficiently shows the organ 

 to be blunted, as from its confined use might be inferred. 

 The sense of smelling cannot be in fish so continually operat- 

 ing as in animals breathing the air, whose nostrils are con- 

 tinually traversed by odorous vapours. To conclude, their 

 sense of feeling almost obliterated on the surface of their 

 bodies by the interposition of scales, and on their members by 

 the inflexibility of the rays, and dryness of the membranes 

 enclosing them, is confined to the tip of their lips, which in 

 some species are themselves converted to the hardness and 

 insensibility of bone. 



