26 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
of nature which causes a creature suddenly and violently 
attacked by a more powerful one to become unconscious of 
physical anguish, however grievously it may be wounded. But 
for that almost the whole scheme of nature, consisting of one 
perpetual process of the destruction of the weak by the 
strong, would offer an intolerable object of contemplation. 
Whether it be the overwhelming sense of terror or some 
other anesthetic influence which renders the victim of a mortal 
crisis insensible to bodily pain, I know not, nor am I bold 
enough to speculate ; but I have the testimony of two men— 
one of whom had been mauled by a tiger, the other by 
a lion—that during the mauling they felt no pain. The first, 
indeed, said that he felt no apprehension, but a curious, 
soothed sensation of indifference. Paradoxical as it may 
seem, therefore, in view of the degree in which the bodies 
and organs of fish are known to be sensitive, it is probable 
that the mere physical pain suffered by a fish when hooked 
is very slight. The horror which a man feels on receiving a 
shocking wound is not caused by the present pain, but by 
apprehension of the consequences. An animal so intelligent 
as a dog may suffer by anticipation in the same way, though 
in a lower degree ; but a fish can have no dread of ulterior 
evils. The present is all it can be sensible of ; it cannot be 
haunted by apprehension of the painful operations of surgery 
and the tedium of convalescence. I have watched a trout 
which I have hooked in a clear chalk stream. It swam 
slowly and calmly away into deep water, and did not manifest 
the slightest violence or fear, until it caught sight of me. Then, 
as the vulgar saying is, “the band began to play.” The fish 
fought desperately, stimulated, not by pain from the tiny hook 
in his cartilaginous mouth, but by terror for the common 
enemy, man. Consequently, it may well happen that in 
strolling down a brookside you may be inflicting as much 
temporary suffering upon every trout that darts shadow-like 
from the shallows at your approach as if you had it securely 
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