44 ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



apparent evidence of sensibility. Having no elastic air at their disposal, 

 they are dumb, or nearly so, and to all the sentiments which voice awakens 

 or entertains, they are strangers. Their eyes are, as it were, motionless, 

 their faces bony and fixed, their limbs incapable of flexion, and moving as 

 one piece, leaving no play to their physiognomy, no expression to their 

 feelings.- Their ears, enclosed entirely in the cranium, without external 

 concha, or internal cochlea, composed only of some sacs and membraneous 

 canals, can hardly suffice to distinguish the most striking sounds, and, more- 

 over, they have little use for the sense of hearing, condemned to live in the 

 empire of silence, where everything around is mute. Even their sight in the 

 depths which they frequent could have little exercise, if most of them had 

 not, in the size of their eyes, a means of compensation for the feebleness of 

 the light ; but even in these the eye hardly changes its direction, still less by 

 altering its dimensions can it accommodate itself to the distance of objects. 

 The iris never dilates or contracts, and the pupil remains the same in all 

 intensities of illumination. No tear ever waters the eye — no eyelid wipes 

 or protects it — it is in the fish but a teeble representative of this organ, so 

 beautiful, so lively, and so animated in the higher classes of animals." 



This, with more to the same effect respecting the 

 other senses with which we are endowed, constitutes a 

 strong case against the fish ; and it is becoming that we 

 should bow with reverence to the opinions of the great 

 Cuvier. Nevertheless, a few suggestions on the other side 

 will be harmless, and may liave a temporary interest and 

 utility. 



We do not sufficiently consider how very little we 

 know of the modes of communication between fish, or of 

 the forms of their external impressions and the manner in 

 which these are received. Having had no experience of 

 what living in the water is like, are we not rather hasty in 

 our estimates of what a fish can, and does, think ? Per- 

 sons who have been rescued from drowning have told us 

 that the mental consequences of prolonged immersion are 



