INSTINCT AND REASON IN DOGS, ETC. 229 



of colour. Condition vanes in all living things ; 

 and put two fishes side by side of the same kind, 

 but the one in season and the other out of season, 

 their aspect, as well as the eating and handling of 

 them, would be very different. 



Very few people are aware of the extreme 

 difficulty of handling for any time, with a view 

 to their recovery and retaining life after manipula- 

 tion, any sort of fish whose tissues are defended 

 by the delicate and silvery scale. Not one 

 person in a thousand, albeit that he is a fisherman, 

 believes that if you ^^ throw" a fish which is 

 thought to be of insufficient size to retain, back 

 into the water, tliat fish so used is as sure to die 

 as if the head liad been severed from the body. 

 ^^ No, they do not thus die," I have heard these 

 ^^ throwers offish" back into their element exclaim, 

 when T remonstrated on the foolish act ; and then 

 they added, ^^ we always see the fish swim away 

 as well as ever." That they may do for the time 

 being ; but if they could observe that fish there- 

 after, when suffering from such treatment, they 

 would see that in the course of a few days his 

 back and sides were becoming ^'furred," and that 

 at last death terminated his sufferings. 



