290 Miscellaneous. Chapt. xxiii. 



water is, and that it makes as good efforts to regain it as a man 

 that cannot swim does to gain the shore ; makes as good efforts, in 

 short, as could be made by an animal of its formation. Crocodiles 

 travel long distances to water. Eels, too, are well known to cross 

 meadows in the night, and not to fail to find their way back to the 

 water. The climbing perch (Anabas scandens) intelligently retraces 

 its way to its own element. 



Why should not all fish have a sense of knowing, by smell or 

 otherwise, where the water is, and making their best endeavour to 

 regain it ? It is true they are generally aided in their efforts by the 

 shore ordinarily shelving down to the water, and it is thence con- 

 cluded an accident that their jumping about resulted in bringing them 

 nearer to their own element. But the shore does not always so shelve, 

 and yet the same result has taken place so often with me, that I 

 could not help observing it. When considered without prejudice, it 

 is more natural that the fish should have this sense than that it 

 should not. Savages and other animals seem to have an intuitive 

 knowledge of the points of the compass to aid them in selecting 

 their direction. Why should not fish have a similar power adapted 

 to their needs ? 



I do not believe that a fish suffers more pain from being caught 

 by a hook than from being caught by a net. We all know the 

 well-worn story of the angler, who, hooking a perch foul by the 

 eye, so that the eye came out and he lost the fish, would not be 

 troubled to rebait his hook, as the fish were taking so fast, but cast 

 it in just as it was, with the eye on the hook, and immediately 

 caught the owner of the eye on that very hook. That perch can- 

 not have suffered much ophthalmically, his appetite must have 

 been his chief trouble. I have myself seen a shark hauled half out 

 of water, when his weight was such that the chain attached to the 

 hook broke; within a very few minutes, however, he was again 

 following the ship, and in the clear ocean water we could see the 

 chain hanging out of his mouth. A new hook was rigged, and on 

 his being hooked and pulled partially out of water, a sailor swarmed 

 down tin' rope, and slipped a noose over him, because of his great 

 size. We soon had him on deck, and recovered the old hook and 

 chain. That shark cannot have suffered much pain, even from the 

 hauling of several sailors. How do you account then, you will ask, 

 for a fish dashing away directly it feels it is hooked. I say it is 



