90 FISHES AND FISHING. 



the vibration of water, a tangible substance, through 

 the thin structure and want of solidity of the cranium 

 in fishes, agitates their ossicula, and that sensation is 

 communicated to the sensorium, or brain of the fish, 

 through the auditory nerves, and instinct or natural 

 intelligence gives them the power of knowing whe 

 ther the agitation of the element in which they exist, 

 is indicative of danger, or the approach of food ; any 

 explosion or other cause which produces trembling, 

 or shaking of the banks of a pond or river, occasions 

 agitation of the water, and the fish hear, or rather 

 feel it, for in point of fact what is denominated hear 

 ing is feeling ; we feel the vibration upon the mem- 

 brana tympani, which is conveyed thence through 

 the ossicula and nerves to the brain; but the brain 

 requires education. A young child feels the vibration 

 caused by sound which I speak of, but does not under 

 stand what it indicates, until by degrees it learns 

 that certain vibrations given to its brain, by the agi 

 tation of the air occasioned by sounds, mean certain 

 things. I have had great opportunity of forming a 

 judgment on this subject ; for having given to children 

 whose membrane or nerves had never vibrated, in 

 consequence of any sound which could be made, the 

 power of being affected by the slightest noise, I took 

 one into my family who had become an orphan, and 

 educated her ; but the difficulty of inducing her to 



