114 Bass, Pike, and Perch 



We were perfectly sure that it was his, as he had 

 tied his hooks himself with a peculiar shade of 

 sewing silk. He then marked the fish by clip- 

 ping off a portion of one of the spines of the 

 dorsal fin, and returned it to the water, only to be 

 retaken three times, twice by my friend and once 

 by myself. The lips of the perch being then 

 quite ragged from the frequent hooking, it was 

 humanely killed and deposited in the basket. 



From my experience with both wild and domes- 

 ticated fish I am quite sure that cold-blooded 

 animals, like fishes and batrachians, are not very 

 sensitive to pain. Owing to the very small brain 

 and the gelatinous character of the spinal marrow 

 of fishes, it is very doubtful if they suffer much, 

 if any, pain from the infliction of so slight an 

 injury as the pricking of a fish-hook. If it were 

 otherwise, I do not think a hooked fish would 

 offer so much resistance and pull so hard upon 

 the hook if it caused much pain. Nor does it 

 seem reasonable that a fish would repeatedly sub- 

 ject itself to the same experience if its mouth 

 felt at all sore, as all experienced anglers know 

 they do, time and again. The mouth and throat 

 of a fish cannot be very sensitive when it is con- 

 sidered that it swallows, whole, such prey as 



