OF PISH IN GENERAL. 13 



Remarks on their sense of feeling. 



fish in the same manner as the cetaceous and 

 bony, and the whole mass of blood passing 

 through their gills, they must breathe, or they 

 cannot possess the pulmo aibutarius, which natu- 

 ralists have assigned to them. 



This gentleman, from the circumstance of very 

 large and numerous lymphatics being dispersed 

 upon the gills of the scales, and the additional 

 one that fish soon die when put into water from 

 which the air has been extracted, and yet that 

 such water is capable of washing off exhaled 

 matter from the gills, and of taking up phlogis- 

 tort readily, is led to suppose that the gills, or 

 lung's not only discharge hurtful matter, but 

 Serve also tb take in from the air, which is mixed 

 with the water somewhat necessary for life, the 

 precise nature of which has not as yet bee* 

 ascertained by any experiments. 



The aquatic race of beings have in general 

 been placed in a very inferior scale of impor- 

 tance, on the score of animal faculties, to either 

 quadrupeds or birds. Their sense of feeling, 

 some think, must be very obscure, on account 

 of the scaly coat of mail in wbich they are wrap- 

 ped; but in reply it may be urged, that even 

 these scales may be endued with as great or nice 

 a power of sensation as can be imagined, for th 

 sense of feeling is not properly connected with 

 softness in any organ, more than with hardness 

 in it. 



