42 HEARING IN FISHES. 



disparagement? We remember on one occasion 

 having first-rate sport within ten yards of a band 

 of inebriated musicians (pardon the profanation, 

 O Apollo !) who favoured us with a special sere- 

 nade in a style any thing but dolce e piano 

 half stunning us with the squeak of clarinets, 

 the clang of trumpets, and the thunder of a roll- 

 ing drum, amid the uproar of a fight among the 

 bystanders. We endured the din with proper 

 equanimity, landing fish after fish at the very feet 

 of our disturbers, without suspecting them of 

 Glenkindie's power to attract our speckled cap- 

 tives, and yet experiencing no contrary effect. 



Professor James Wilson a brother of the 

 delightful and celebrated " Christopher North," 

 and the author of the excellent article on Angling 

 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica alluding to 

 this subject, in that article, says : " There is no 

 doubt that fishes possess the power of hearing, 

 though merely as a general sense of sound, and in 

 all probability without the power of perceiving 

 any variety or range of intonation. It appears 

 to us that the simple fact of fishes being, as a 

 class, almost, if not entirely, mute, is of itself a 

 logical ground for believing that their perceptions 

 of sound are extremely dull." 



The voracity and omniverous propensities of 



