35 Miscellaneous. CHAP. xxv. 



" Like a fish out of water " is a common saying, the drift of which 

 needs no expounding. I venture to question its accuracy in its full 

 acceptation. I venture to think a fish out of \vater is not quite so 

 much abroad but that it has still a sense of where the water is, and that 

 it makes as good efforts to regain it as a man that cannot swim does to 

 gain the shore ; makes as good efforts, in short, as could be made by 

 an animal of its formation. Crocodiles travel long distances to water. 

 Eels, too, are well known to cross meadows in the night, and not to 

 fail to find their way back to the water. The climbing perch (Anabas 

 scandens) intelligently retraces its way to its own element. 



Why should not all fish have a sense of knowing, by smell or other- 

 wise, where the water is, and making their best endeavour to regain it ? 

 It is true they are generally aided in their efforts by the shore ordinarily 

 shelving down to the water, and it is thence concluded an accident 

 that their jumping about resulted in bringing them nearer to their own 

 element. But the shore does not always so shelve, and yet the same 

 result has taken place so often with me, that I could not help observing 

 it. When considered without prejudice, it is more natural that the fish 

 should have this sense than that it should not. Savages and other 

 animals seem to have an intuitive knowledge of the points of the 

 compass to aid them in selecting their direction. Why should not fish 

 have' a similar power adapted to their needs ? 



I do not believe that a fish suffers more pain from being caught by 

 a hook than from being caught by a net. We all know the well-worn 

 story of the angler, who, hooking a perch foul by the eye, so that the 

 eye came out and he lost the fish, would not be troubled to rebait his 

 hook, as the fish were taking so fast, but cast it in just as it was, with 

 the eye on the hook, and immediately caught the owner of the eye on 

 that very hook. That perch cannot have suffered much ophthalmically, 

 his appetite must have been his chief trouble. I have myself seen a 

 shark hauled half out of water, when his weight was such that the chain 

 attached to the hook broke ; within a very few minutes, however, he 

 was again following the ship, and in the clear ocean water we could see 

 the chain hanging out of his mouth. A new hook was rigged, and on 

 his being hooked and pulled partially out of water, a sailor swarmed 

 down the rope, and slipped a noose over him, because of his great size. 

 We soon had him on deck, and recovered the old hook and chain. 

 That shark cannot have suffered much pain, even from the hauling of 



