44-0 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



less daughters of the unpolluted one;' but many of the 

 ancients and moderns testify to the utterances of fish. Pliny, 

 Ovid, and others tell us of the Scarus and its wonderful 

 powers of intonation. In the days of old Rome certain fish 

 were said to have a regular language, 'low, sweet and fasci- 

 nating, ' and the Emperor Augustus pretended to understand 

 their very words. We have all heard, or heard of, the vari- 

 ous sounds of the Gurnards, of the booming of the Drum-fish, 

 the grunt of the Croaker, Weak-fish and others. The Grunt- 

 fish of the Gulf of Mexico is said to express discontent and 

 pain, and when touched with a knife fairly shrieks, and when 

 dying makes moans and sobs disagreeably human. Take it 

 all in all, we cannot but believe that fish have the power of 

 making intelligent communication to one another, mouth to 

 mouth, and we have frequently noted, or thought we did, a 

 kind of knowing look about their eyes which led us to credit 

 them with looking unutterable things." 



The scientists tell us that in many fishes no trace exists of 

 an organ of hearing; that the tympanum, its cavity, and the 

 external parts of the ear, are entirely absent; that in others 

 this organ is only imperfectly developed, and that in the 

 remaining few, such as the shark, the shad, herring, and 

 others, there is an odd connection between the organ of 

 hearing and the air-bladder. With these crude facts before 

 him, the ichthyologist leaves the angler to work out the 

 answer to the question, "Can fish hear?" which is a most 

 practical one to the careful angler, in his pursuit of the edu- 

 cated game fish of our inland waters. We sum up briefly 

 the conclusions of an old Black-Bass angler on this subject: 



Fish hear no sound originating in the air. 



Place a cannon upon an India-rubber carriage, sufficiently 

 large and elastic enough to deaden, when fired, all concus- 

 sion upon the ground, and Mr. Fish, after the explosion, 

 will be as placid in his pool as a gourmand after dinner. 



But, step as lightly as one may upon the margin of a 



