CHAPTER XXXYIL 



TRACES OF VOICES IN FISHES. 



IN Peschel's volume on " The Races of Man," I find 

 the following paragraph, and it seems a fitting text where- 

 with to preface a few remarks on the subject of indica- 

 tions of voice in some of our fishes. He says : " If speech 

 be but the means of communicating emotions or inten- 

 tions to other beings, even invertebrate animals possess 

 faculties of the same nature. We see insects, such as 

 ants, which live in so-called communities, carrying out 

 elaborately preconcerted warlike undertakings and attacks. 

 A beetle, which in rolling the ball of dung inclosing its 

 egg has allowed it to slip into a hole from which it is un- 

 able to extricate it, flies away, to return in a short time 

 with a number of assistants sufficient to push the ball up 

 the sides of the declivity by co-operation of labor. These 

 creatures must, therefore, unquestionably possess some 

 means of communicating with each other concerning this 

 combination. It requires no long observation of our song- 

 birds to distinguish the different tones by which they 

 warn their young of danger, or call them to feed, or by 

 which they attract each other to pair. These animals, 

 therefore, have at their control a certain number of sig- 

 nals which are quite adequate to procure for them some 

 few of the wants of their life, and these signals, as far as 

 we can at present guess, have been acquired and inherited 

 in the same manner as were their instincts." 



