SENSES OF FISHES. ^ 



fish. They pound a quantity of fishers, berries' in a 

 mortar, and, with or without flour or oatmeal, cheese, 

 honey, and the hke, make a paste which they form 

 into balls about the size of garden peas, and throw 

 them into the water. The fish greedily swallow these, 

 and becoming intoxicated or palsied thereby, they come 

 up to the surface of the water, and are easily caught or 

 soon die. 



The teeth of fishes are not then, it would appear, 

 destined for chewing, but principally for laying hold 

 of and detaining their prey, being with this view bent 

 inwards similar to tenter hooks, by which means sm.all 

 fishes though ever so slippery are forced back into the 

 gullet, and their escape or retm-n prevented. It is no 

 doubt with the same design that the throats of many 

 fish are studded with what M. Bory St. Vincent terms 

 a pavement of teeth. Sach fishes as have teeth thus 

 placed far back upon the palate and upper part of the 

 throat while they want them in their jaws, are termed 

 by anglers leather-mouthed '^. 



Amongst leather-moiithed fishes are reckoned, the 

 minnow, the loach, the gudgeon, the bleak, the roach, 

 the dace, the barbel, the chub, the rud, the bream, 

 the tench, and the carp. The salmon and the pike 

 have teeth both in the jaws, and in all parts of the 

 mouth, and the perch in all parts of the mouth except 

 the tongue. The sturgeon again has no teeth what- 

 ever. 



The distinction of fish into such as are and such as 



(1) In Latin, Cocciilus Indicus. (2) Technically, Malacostomata. 



