rnicedlhu/s. Ixix 



most effective aids to the study of Ictliyology was the aqunrinm, 

 wbicli euabletl the naturaUst to stnJy at leisure the proclivities of 

 the fiuuy tribes. He then proceeded to compare the natures and 

 habits of fishes with those of terrestrial animals, and considered 

 the former were not so bereft of the characteristics of the latter 

 as was supposed. According to experiments which he had made 

 at South Kensington and elsewhere, he found that fish possessed 

 the power of communicating with each other in a marlied manner. 

 He had on several occasions witnessed a shoal of carp approached 

 by a solitary congener, which ultimately conducted the entire 

 body to the spot Avhence it emerged. This migration was occa- 

 sioned by the appearance of food. It was in consequence of this 

 communicative capacity that the hours of many a patient 

 disciple of Izaak Walton were rendered wretched and barren of 

 piscatorial events. Nature had not denied entirely to fish that 

 Avhich she had freely lavished upon higher animals ; and, there- 

 fore, he thought that tlie more the subject was studied, the more 

 we should realise that the gift of communication had been im- 

 planted in the nature of every creature in a more or less degree. 

 In regard to tlieir habits, Mr. Carter said fish were endowed with 

 somnolent desires, although it might reasonably be thought that 

 the sphere of existence which they occupied was scarcely in bon 

 accord with repose ; but, on the other hand, it was difficult to credit 

 the assumption that fish were excluded from the potency of sleep, 

 which came upon all periodically, "as the death of each day's life." 

 - Mr. Carter next referred tadeforraities in fishes, which seemed 

 more common amongst them than any of the three classes of 

 vertebrata. He had kept a careful record of the number of 

 deformed specimens of young trout and salmon at South Ken- 

 sington, and found two cases in every thousand, and one case 

 of monstrosity in every four thousand. The deformities con- 

 sisted chiefly of crooked forms and protruding underjaws. Mon- 

 strobities, such as dual-headed or twin fish, did not live long, 

 but deformed fish existed for a considerable period. He had 

 noticed that deformed fish, at their birth, issued from the egg 

 head foremost ; as a rule, fry raptured the capsule with tlieir 

 tail and so escaped. 



Mr. Carter then proceeded to speak of the natural mis- 

 arrangement of parts, and instanced the Pleuronectida: family, as 

 coming under this category. The flounder, for instance, whose 

 contortions were more pronounced than the rest of the same 

 family, was a monstrosity throughout, and was one of the most 

 degraded of fish, its unsymmetrical appearance being noticed in 

 the earliest ages. The study of the progress of development 

 from tlieir birth was exceedingly mysterious and interesting, 

 when it was considered that on issuing from the ova they pos- 

 sessed an eye on both sides of the head and swam on edge like 



