26 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



of nature which causes a creature suddenly and violently- 

 attacked by a more powerful one to become unconscious of 

 physical anguish, however grievously it may be wounded. But 

 for that almost the whole scheme of nature, consisting of one 

 perpetual process of the destruction of the weak by the 

 strong, would offer an intolerable object of contemplation. 

 Whether it be the overwhelming sense of terror or some 

 other anaesthetic influence which renders the victim of a mortal 

 crisis insensible to bodily pain, I know not, nor am I bold 

 enough to speculate ; but I have the testimony of two men — 

 one of whom had been mauled by a tiger, the other by 

 a lion — that during the mauling they felt no pain. The first, 

 indeed, said that he felt no apprehension, but a curious, 

 soothed sensation of indifference. Paradoxical as it may 

 seem, therefore, in view of the degree in which the bodies 

 and organs of fish are known to be sensitive, it is probable 

 that the mere physical pain suffered by a fish when hooked 

 is very slight. The horror which a man feels on receiving a 

 shocking wound is not caused by the present pain, but by 

 apprehension of the consequences. An animal so intelligent 

 as a dog may suffer by anticipation in the same way, though 

 in a lower degree ; but a fish can have no dread of ulterior 

 evils. The present is all it can be sensible of; it cannot be 

 haunted by apprehension of the painful operations of surgery 

 and the tedium of convalescence. I have watched a trout 

 which I have hooked in a clear chalk stream. It swam 

 slowly and calmly away into deep water, and did not manifest 

 the slightest violence or fear, until it caught sight of me. Then, 

 as the vulgar saying is, " the band began to play." The fish 

 fought desperately, stimulated, not by pain from the tiny hook 

 in his cartilaginous mouth, but by terror for the common 

 enemy, man. Consequently, it may well happen that in 

 strolling down a brookside you may be inflicting as much 

 temporary suffering upon every trout that darts shadow-like 

 from the shallows at your approach as if you had it securely 



