388 HAVE FISHER MEMORY. 



close to him. Herr Jaffe, in Santfort, a breeder of great experience, 

 also noticed that the clothing of the keeper went far in determining 

 the confidence of his trout, and that they seemed loath to approach 

 him when he changed it. Otto Zacharias (Plon), likewise an authority 

 on the habits of fishes, reports that his fish approach him to be fed as 

 soon as they see him; and the fish breeder, P. A. Wallau, of Mayence, 

 observes great restlessness, jumping in the air, etc., among the trout 

 in his ponds whenever the attendant throws up his arm as though to 

 cast food into the water. Henri de Parville relates that in the gardens 

 of the Luxembourg the fish, which are fed by a keeper in uniform, 

 always swam up to the sides of the pond at the approach of two cadets 

 from the military academy, who wore similar uniforms, Mrs. John- 

 ston (Bethlehem. Pa.) maintains that her fish take food from her and 

 from the physician attending her, but from no other visitor. Herr 

 A. O. Bernhardt (Warsaw) observed that carp took food from the 

 hands of certain ones of the attendants, but dived out of sight when 

 others offered it. Hutt (Folkestone) fed Blejinlnx pholls from a long 

 slender stick; later he saw it jump up at the stick when no food was 

 attached to it. 



Optical impressions, however, do not seem to be the only ones 

 retained. Benedict regularly fed his fish at the moment when a 

 freight train passed, and was astonished to find that the fish came to 

 him when the train passed, though no food was offered. But that 

 may have something to do with the time of day; the regularly fed 

 animals grew hungry at the accustomed hour. It is known that carp 

 habitually rise to the surface of the water with a smacking noise at 

 the time of the evening meal. That percussions attract tame fish is 

 reported also by C. Fallon (Philadelphia, Pa.); he could summon his 

 goldfish by stamping his foot on the side of the pond. Many of my 

 correspondents believe that the behavior of fish toward the hook 

 argues the possessicin of some sort of memory. 



The matter is not quite so simple as appears on the surface. The 

 process of taking in food involves many circumstances that as a rule 

 are not sufficiently taken into consideration. 



If food is placed on the tentacles concentrically arranged about the 

 mouth of an actinia (sea-anemone), a simple organism belonging to 

 the Codenterata^ it at once closes upon the food and pi esses it into 

 the mouth. The sensibility of the tentacles is such that contraction 

 follows upon the proper stimulus. The act has so little to do with the 

 will or the discernment of the animal that it may occur without a 

 mouth. Loeb, in Chicago, saw the same tentacle contraction in cases in 

 which the moiith had been completely mutilated— in which, in fact, no 

 mouth had been present from the first. Under certain conditions an 

 injury inflicted anywhere on the body of a sea-anemone causes a circle 

 of tentacles similar to that surrounding the uiouth to sprout forth. A 



