466 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747-8. 



differently placed, whose situation and structure, for want of due examination, 

 we are not acquainted with.* To be able therefore to judge from real facts, 

 without being in the least prejudiced by what has been written for or against 

 their capacity of hearing, he had, for almost three years past, been often trying 

 experiments on several kinds of fishes ; viz. perches, ruflts, bansticles, millers- 

 thumbs, minnows, &c. which he had kept in glass jars for that purpose ; and at 

 the hours of feeding them, as well as at other times, by different noises, such as 

 whistling, hallooing, the sounds of several musical instruments, and every other 

 means he could contrive, endeavoured to discover their sense of hearing, if they 

 were indeed endowed with that sense ; but could never perceive they were af- 

 fected by any of these noises. 



But whether fishes do or do not hear, it is certain their senses of feeling and 

 seeing are exquisitely quick ; and he believed by the extreme sensibility of these 

 two, one may explain most of the accounts that have been brought by writers as 

 proofs of their hearing ; such as their coming, when called by their names, as 

 Plutarch relates of Marcus Crassus's lamprey ; their flocking in throngs when 

 called to be fed, as Mr. Bradley tells us he saw the carps do in the pond of one 

 Mr. Eden at Rotterdam ; and their flying away from the hallooing and noises 

 made by sailors, as Wolfgang reports the dolphins do, when the sailors have a 

 mind to fright them. But may we not as reasonably imagine these dolphins fly 

 from the sailors, their ships and boats, on account of the violent action with 

 which such hallooings usually are performed, as merely on account of the noise 

 they make .'' and in the other cases, is it not as probable, that the fish in ponds, 

 either by their sight or feeling, discovered the approach of their benefactors, 

 whose coming they were accustomed to expect, as that they were sensible of their 

 voices calling them ? 



He had often struck with his thumb-nail against the edge of a glass jar, in 

 which he kept 2 ruffs, a stroke not harder than the beat of a pulse, which would 

 cause them in a moment to dart from the bottom of the jar to the top ; though 

 he was sure they did not see him. But if he made the same motion without 

 hitting the glass, or if he made a hundred times louder noises than the striking 

 of his nail against the glass, at a very small distance from it, he could not per- 

 ceive they were in the least affected ; which, if duly considered, might be thought 

 to amount to a proof of the deafness or want of hearing in this kind of fish at 

 least ; and that their delicate sense of feeling supplies them with the knowledge 

 of the motions of bodies, when their other senses fail. Indeed he had often been 

 convinced by experiment, that their feeling is exceedingly acute, perhaps more 

 so than in other animals; whence he had been led to imagine, that their fins 



• Since Mr. A.'s observations were written, the structure of the organ of hearing in fishes has 

 been accurately examined and described by various anatonusts. 



