230 CAN FISHES HEAR? 



The aforesaid horse mushroom is the species most 

 commonly offered for sale in London, except, of course, 

 those from artificial beds. It is easily known from the 

 field mushroom by the gills, which, when fresh, are pallid, 

 though they turn dark brown like the others after being 

 gathered some time. As for mushrooms cultivated in the 

 dark, on beds of horse-manure, I will never eat one if I 

 know it. Let alone the flavour, which is far inferior to 

 the wild article, they are said to be less digestible than 

 fresh mushrooms from the field. Besides, the material in 

 which they are grown is enough to condemn them. 



LIV 



A correspondence under the above heading has been 

 can Fishes started in the Field newspaper, founded upon 

 hear? a paper contributed by Professor Korner, 

 director of the Ear Hospital at Rostock, to a scientific 

 periodical in Berlin. The same question has often been 

 hotly debated among anglers, and ichthyologists have 

 recognised a certain apparatus, supposed to be the organ 

 of hearing, in every kind of fish except the lowest of 

 all, the lancelet. Haeckel refused this curious creature 

 (Brachiostoma lanceolatum) a place among the fishes. 

 It has colourless blood and no brain, wherefore he 

 placed it in a branch by itself, named Acrania, or brain- 

 less animals; but with less apparent reason he refused 

 to class the Cyclostoinata, or lampreys as fishes. 

 Roughly speaking, what has been regarded hitherto as 

 the hearing organ of fishes with bony skeletons, such 

 as perch, trout, carp, etc., presents neither drum nor 

 external orifice, but consists of a labyrinth within the 



