14 OBSERVATIONS 



gills for performing the office of respiration ; but I 

 think there are some nerves in these organs which 

 give fishes a sense of the qualities of water, or of 

 substances dissolved in or diffused through it 

 similar to our sense of smell or perhaps rather 

 our sense of taste, for there can be no doubt that 

 fishes are attracted by scented worms which are 

 sometimes used by anglers that employ ground 

 baits." Also page 184, he says, " We cannot 

 judge of the senses of animals that breathe water 

 that separate air from water by their gills ; but it 

 seems probable that as the quality of the water is 

 connected with their life and health, they must be 

 exquisitely sensible to changes in water, and must 

 have similar relations to it, that 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 the discovery of senses in fish, which we 

 have not, than to attempts at comparison between 

 our own senses and theirs?* 



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 below ; 



* Those who may have curiosity enough to pursue this interesting 

 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 



