262 FISHES. 



the bones of the head, destitute of an external concha, as also of a 

 cochlea internally, and composed solely of little sacs and membranous 

 canals, hardly enable them to hear the loudest sounds. Of little use 

 would the faculty of hearing be to these animals, that arc condemned 

 to live in the realms of silence, -where all about them is still. Vision 

 ■would be of little advantage to fishes in the depths to which they are 

 consigned, had not most of the species, in the large proportion of 

 their eyes, a resource against the weakness of the light ; but in these 

 animals, the direction of the eye is hardly ever changed, and still less 

 can they vary its dimensions so as to accommodate the organ to the 

 distance of visible objects. The iris neither contracts nor dilates, 

 and the pupil is never altered Avhatever be the diversity of the quan- 

 tity of light. No tear bathes that eye, no eye-lid dries or affords it 

 protection, and in the fishes there is only found a very feeble image 

 indeed of that organ so remarkable for its beauty and its animation 

 in the higher classes of animals. They procure their food only by 

 swimming in pursuit of their prey, which itself swims with greater or 

 less rapidity, they possess the power, not indeed of seizing, but merely 

 of swallowing, so that the delicate faculty of taste would have been 

 thrown away upon them had nature bestowed it ; but their tongue, 

 almost immoveable, sometimes completely bony, or, like a coat of 

 mail, studded with jDlates of teeth, and supplied very sparingly with 

 thin nerves, demonstrate to us that the organ is just as blunt as we 

 should have previously concluded from its very little use. The 

 function of smell, also, cannot be so continually exercised by fishes, 

 as it is by animals Avhich breath the air, and through whose organs of 

 smell odoriferous vapours are constantly circulating. Lastly, their 

 touch, almost obliterated at the surface of the body by the scales, and 

 also in their limbs, in consequence of the absence of the power of 

 bending their rays, and, further, in consequence of the dryness of their 

 enveloping membranes, their touch, I repeat, has been forced, as it 

 were, to take refuge at the extremity of their lips, and these even, in 

 some species, are reduced to a state of bony hardness, that renders 

 them insensible. Thus, the external senses of fishes supply them 

 with a very small share indeed of lively and distinct impressions ; 

 the natural objects which surround them must affect them only in a 

 confused manner; but little variety belongs to their pleasures, and no 

 sufferings are likely to visit them from without, save such as may be 

 the effect of Avounds. Their unceasing craving, that which alone 

 influences and acts on them, except during the nuptial season, that 

 predominant passion must be enough to satiate their internal sense of 

 hunger ; to devour is almost the entire business of their lives Avhen 

 not engaged in reproducing, and it is solely for this great purpose, 

 feeding, that their structure is adjusted, and all their organs of motion 

 arranged. To pursue their prey, or to escape an enemy, is the double 

 employment of their existence ; it is these that determine the various 

 habitations of which they make choice, and the variations of their 

 forms ; they also serve to explain Avhy nature supplied some of the 

 species with so few instincts, and so little of any faculty of con- 

 trivance; the fishing rays of the anglers*, the tubed-mouths sud- 



* See p. 158 of this volume. See Epibiilus and Coricus, in the 14th famUy of 

 the same order 



