44 ANGLING. 



SECTION III. 



Nutrition and Growth of Fishes. 



THE food seized by the teeth of the maxillae, and 

 detained by the valve just mentioned, is carried still 

 further backwards by the teeth of the palate and 

 tongue, when these exist, and is at the same time 

 prevented by the dentations of the branchial arches 

 from penetrating between the intervals of the 

 branchiae, where it might injure those delicate organs 

 of respiration. The movements of the maxillae and 

 tongue can thus send the food only in the direction 

 of the pharynx, where it undergoes additional action 

 on the part of the teeth of the pharyngeal bones, 

 which triturate or carry it backwards into the oeso- 

 phagus. The last-named portion is clothed by a 

 layer of strong, close set, muscular fibres, some- 

 times forming various bundles, the contractions of 

 which push the alimentary matter into the stomach, 

 thus completing the act of deglutition. 



The nutritive functions of fishes follow the same 

 order of progression as those of the other classes of 

 the vertebrated kingdom. They seize, and in some 

 measure divide, their food with their teeth ; they 

 digest it in the stomach, from whence it passes 

 into the intestinal canal, where it receives a supply 

 of bile from the liver, and frequently a liquid simi- 

 lar to that of the pancreas ; the nutritive juices, 

 absorbed by vessels analogous to lacteals, and pro- 

 bably taken up in part also directly by the veins, 



