■n 



ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



MAY> 1822. 



Article I. 



Anatomical Discoveries respecting the Organ of Hearing in Fishes, 



In the year 1820, a thin quarto volume was published at 

 Leipsic by Dr. Ernest Henry Weber, entitled " De aure et 

 auditu Hominis et Aniraalium, pars I. De aure Animalium 

 AquatiHum." By this first part, Dr. Weber considers the fol- 

 lowing new facts to be the results of his anatomical labours on 

 fishes. We, therefore, insert a translation of them here in order 

 to draw the attention of our comparative anatomists to the 

 anatomy of the ear of fishes.^ 



1 . The petromyzojites {lampreys), both of rivers and the sea, 

 are furnished with a cartilaginous vestibulum separate from the 

 cavity of the cranium, but they are destitute of semicircular 

 canals, both cartilaginous and membranaceous. They are like- 

 wise destitute of lapilli enclosed in the vestibulum, or in a bursa, 

 and have no external organs of hearing. Their membranaceous 

 vestibulum is divided into different cells. 



2. In several genera of osseous fishes, and especially of the 

 order abdominales, the swimming bladder is joined in a particular 

 way with the internal ear, and is useful to the membrana 

 tympani. 



3. This conjunction of the swimming-bladder with the internal 

 ear in the cyprinus carpio {common carp), brama {bream), tinea 

 {tench), carrassius {crusian), rutilus {roach), aphyas, leuciscus 

 {dace), alburnus {hleak), and doubtless in all the cyprini ; like- 



* We have not ventured to translate the Latin names by which Weber distinguishes 

 the parts which he describes, conceiving them likely to be more generally intelligible 

 than the corresponding English ones. 



l^ew Series, vol. iii. y 



