FIRST DAT!] SENSIBILITY OF FISH. 11 



them out of the water by main force with the net ; 

 and in general when taken by the common fisherman, 

 fish are permitted to die slowly, and to suffer in the 

 air, from the want of their natural element; whereas, 

 every good angler, as soon as his fish is landed, either 

 destroys his life immediately, if he is wanted for food, 

 or returns him into the water. 



PHYS. But do you think nothing of the torture of 

 the hook, and the fear of capture, and the misery of 

 struggling against the powerful rod ? 



HAL. I have already admitted the danger of 

 analysing, too closely, the moral character of any of 

 our field-sports ; yet I think it cannot be doubted 

 that the nervous system of fish, and cold-blooded 

 animals in general, is less sensitive than that of warm- 

 blooded animals. The hook usually is fixed in the 

 cartilaginous part of the mouth, where there are no 

 nerves ; and a proof that the sufferings of a hooked 

 fish cannot be great is found in the circumstance, that 

 though a trout has been hooked and played for some 

 minutes, he will often, after his escape with the arti- 

 ficial fly in his mouth, take the natural fly, and feed 

 as if nothing had happened ; having apparently learnt 

 only from the experiment, that the artificial fly is not 

 proper food. And I have caught pikes with four or 

 five hooks in their mouths, and tackle which they had 

 broken only a few minutes before; and the hooks 



