28 THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



times anglers employed certain essential oils to add zest to 

 their baits. At Borton Cliff, near Shrewsbury, a gentleman 

 was in the habit of feeding a trout, which lived in a stream 

 at the bottom of his garden, with caterpillars. If he took 

 them up in his fingers the fish invariably refused to swallow 

 them ; at first it seized its prey, next rejected it, and then 

 dashed away. If the caterpillars were knocked off the 

 bushes into a leaf and shaken into the stream, the fish at 

 once swallowed them. Possibly the reason why we find 

 blind fish so constantly in good condition is due to their 

 obtaining their prey by means of their sense of smell, 

 conjoined, perhaps, with that of touch. Trout will ascend 

 up stream hundreds of yards to paste made of salmon roe, 

 which would seem to be due either to smell, taste, or a 

 combination of the two. 



The sense of taste in fishes is generally considered to be 

 but little developed, no tongue or organisation of soft parts 

 being present Still, it cannot be supposed that this class 

 of animals are insensible to preferring some kinds of food 

 in preference to others, for such an idea almost every 

 angler would refuse to entertain. In the sturgeon, the 

 glosso-pharyngeal nerve sends branches to the branchial 

 arches and palate, where probably the sense of taste resides ; 

 while it has been advanced that peculiar organs well sup- 

 plied with nerves are developed in similar localities in carps. 



As special organs of touch, we find barbels more or less 

 developed around the mouths of some fishes, especially the 

 sheat-fishes or siluroids, which mostly live in muddy waters, 

 and must mainly obtain their food through the faculties of 

 smell or touch. These organs are likewise more or less 

 seen in carp. Irrespective of barbels, the fin rays may be 

 employed for tactile purposes, as is especially observable in 

 the free pectoral rays of the gurnard. 



