180 BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



cornea is almost flat, Avhile in birds of proy, which have a 

 very extondetl range of vision, the cornea is qnite convex. 



From the lack of analogy, from tiie great difference in 

 construction of the ocular and auditory a}3paratuses of 

 fishes and terrestrial animals, and from the wide difference 

 in the properties of the media of air and water, I am con- 

 vinced that the organs of the special senses of sight and 

 hearing in fishes are not well understood at the present 

 day; and I am confident that future investigations will 

 prove them to be possessed of much greater acuteness of 

 vision and hearing, than is now accorded them. 



It is a well-known fact that fishes are attracted by any 

 gay, bright, or glittering substance, as a finger-ring, a 

 sleeve-button, or a coin, and have deliberately swallowed 

 them when dropped in the water, I have caught Brook 

 Trout with wintergreen and partridge berries, the bright 

 scarlet color seeming to allure them, and I have even 

 caught them with a naked bright fish-hook ; but all this 

 does not prove that they were the victims of a myopic 

 mistake, or that in their near-sightedness they mistook 

 these various articles for something else ; neither does it 

 prove that a Black Bass will grab at a trolling spoon, a 

 Bluefish snap at a l)one st^uid, or a Spanish Mackerel 

 seize a metal or pearl troll under the delusion that they 

 are really choice shiners, or delicate piscatorial tidbits. 



A camel, it is said, will bolt all sorts of substances, as 

 metal, glass, stones, leather, etc., but when were his short- 

 comings attributed to short-sightedness? Our dogs will 

 often refuse good, clean food and hunt up an old dry bone, 

 a stone, an old shoe, or a stick, and will gnaw them with 

 delight, and even swallow them with evident gratification. 

 Birds will peck at and swallow bright beads, colored 



