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Mammoth Cave, the fish are wholly eyeless, and yet 

 they manage to obtain food without difficulty. Such in- 

 stances and evidences prove conclusively that the sense 

 of smell must be consulted in angling nearly as carefully 

 as the sense of sight, and that stinking bait will not 

 answer for a " lucky fisherman." 



Another way of taking advantage of the sense of 

 smell in fish is to fill a box perforated with small holes 

 with bait and sink it at night or in roily water, so as to 

 attract the fish. The best attainable food should be 

 used, such as worms or what is even preferable, the 

 spawn of other fish. The scent passes out through the 

 holes and the game is drawn together and made more 

 eager by the appetizing smell and the impossibility of 

 getting at the food. The fisherman then offers them his 

 bait with a hook and line included and they cannot 

 refuse him, but are quickly deluded into his basket. 

 This is somewhat of a poaching and unfair method of 

 fishing, but it is successful. 



But not only do fish possess in a high degree the sense 

 of smell, but they are possessed of a smell of their own. 

 We do not mean that "ancient and fish like smell" 

 which comes to all fish equally, the bony fish and the 

 salmon alike, when they have been left out of water 

 for a length of time but a delicate and perceptible odor 

 that clearly distinguishes one species from another so 

 positively that a person who has studied it can tell them 

 apart blindfold. A little investigation will satisfy any 

 one with keen olfactory organs of this fact, and that each 

 kind of fish gives out a peculiar characteristic perfume 

 that can be recognized with a reasonable amount of 

 practice. The odor of the smelt is plainly perceptible, 

 it is supposed to have given the name to the fish, and is 

 observed to differ in the two common varieties of smelt, 



