16 OBSERVATIONS 



quality of the water is connected with their life 

 and health, they must be exquisitely sensible to 

 changes in water, and must have similar rela- 

 tions to it, to those which an animal with the 

 most delicate nasal organs has to the air." 



Surely no reasoning can be more sound than 

 this. Should not our endeavours be directed, 

 rather to this discovery of sensations in fish, 

 which we have not, than to attempts at com- 

 parison between our own senses and theirs ? l 



Having examined the stomachs of many 

 Trouts taken in almost every week throughout 

 the three last entire fishing seasons, with a view 

 chiefly to assist my choice of flies for the catalogue 

 in our fourth chapter, I found that his food con- 

 sisted, besides Flies and Caterpillars, principally 

 of Water Larva?, as Strawbaits, and Stonebaits, 

 swallowed whole, with the stones and small 

 shells adhering to them, Squillce, or Fresh-water 

 Shrimps, Small Fish, Young Craw-fish, Spiders, 



1 Those who may have curiosity enough to pursue this interest- 

 ing topic, might possibly find amusement in the perusal of a paper 

 read to the French Institute by M. Dumeril, August 24th, 1807, 

 and translated in Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxix. p. 344, in which 

 many circumstances judiciously adduced, and fairly reasoned on, 

 lead him to three general conclusions; viz. 1st. That the organ 

 of taste in fishes, if taste they have, " does not reside in the mouth." 

 2ndly. That the sensation of taste, or some equivalent sensation, 

 " is imparted to them by the apparatus which had hitherto been 

 considered as adapted to perceive the emanations of o4orate 

 bodies." And, lastly, " that no real smell can bo perceived in 

 water." 



