ON THE TROUT. 9 



zest which friendly chat often imparts to the 

 exercise of our captivating art, need never be 

 marred by an apprehension that sport will be 

 impaired thereby. 



Sight. 



Of all the senses in fish, sight is perhaps that 

 which is of most importance to them. Their 

 eyes are of course well adapted to the element 

 they inhabit ; indeed their subsistence seems to 

 depend mainly upon the great sensibility of the 

 optic nerve, and the just adaptation of the cry- 

 stalline and other humours to their proper office. 



A fish can perhaps frequently distinguish 

 much more of objects which are out of his own 

 element than it is often imagined that he can. 



When Mr. A. B. (fig. 1, plate 2), for instance, 

 situated upon a certain eminence at a given 

 distance from a fish, C, which is near the bottom 

 of the water, looks over the edge of a bank, D, 

 in the direction AFZ, he might (if unacquainted 

 with the laws of refraction) imagine, that neither 

 the fish C, nor any other fish below the line of 

 his direct vision, AFZ, could see him ; whereas 

 C could see A B by means of the pencil of light, 

 AFCEB, bent, or refracted at the surface of the 

 water, EF, and the image of AB would appear 

 in the eye of the fish shortened and transferred 

 to GH. The fish, in fact, could see the whole of 



