CURIOSITIES OF ANGLING LITERA TURE. 261 



stances which we neither cared for at the period of 

 their occurrence nor ever after. All these, and end- 

 less other instances to which we could refer, tend to 

 prove that where there exist noses, there the absence 

 of the sense of smell must be taken as the exception, 

 and not as the rule. Davies quaintly tells us of that 



" Next, in the nostrils she doth use the smell, 



As God the breath of life in them did give ; 

 So makes he now this power in them to dwell, 

 To judge all airs whereby we breathe and live." 



If then, in other words, we accept the general con- 

 clusion that the nose is the sentinel of the stomach, 

 and we find by proper examination that fish possess 

 the organ with its due proportion of muscles and 

 nerves, we cannot conscientiously deny that they 

 likewise are probably endowed to some extent with the 

 power of discriminating by smell what is good or bad 

 for them. Most anglers are aware that the fresh bait 

 of to-day eagerly seized and pouched by the salmon 

 or the pike, and to-morrow rejected by both, will be 

 greedily devoured by the less fastidious eel, which 

 yet, after a greater degree of staleness in the bait, 

 would turn up its nose at it, whether blunt or pointed ; 

 thus giving the still greater scavenger of the water 

 the craw-fish the chance of making an acceptable 

 meal. Call this an exercise of taste, or by what name 

 you will, it is too intimately connected with smelling 



