14 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Observations on the smell offish. 



With regard to smelling, a similar argument 

 may be used; indeed, how smells can be pro* 

 pagated in water cannot be proved, but that 

 is by no means a proof that they are not so; 

 on the contrary, as water is ibund to be capable 

 of absorbing putrid effluvia from the air, nothing 

 is more probable than that these putrid effluvia, 

 when mixed with the water, may affect the olfac- 

 tory organs of fish, as well as they affect ours 

 when mixed with the air. But this idea is car- 

 ried farther by a very eminent naturalist, who 

 asserts, that, " The olfactory organ in fish is 

 large, and they have a power of dilating and 

 contracting the passage as occasion requires. It 

 is chiefly by their acute smell that they discover 

 their food; and their sight appears to be of less 

 use than that sensation in searching for their 

 nourishment. If a fresh worm be thrown into 

 the water, a fish shall distinguish it at a con- 

 siderable distance ; and that this is not alone by 

 the eye is plain, from observing, that after the 

 same worm has been a considerable time in the 

 water, and lost its smell, no fish will come near 

 it ; but if the worm be now taken out, and a few 

 small incisions made into it, in order to transmit 

 fresh effluvia, the former effect will take place. 

 For it is supposed that had the creatures disco- 

 vered the bait with their eyes they would have 

 come equally to it in both cases." 



Smell being the chief means whereby fish dis- 

 cover their food, they consequently allow them- 



