FISHES SELDOM SPEAK. ()3 



in fact, has found its dimensions nearly the same 

 in different individuals of the same species of 

 which the general size of one was double that of 

 the other. 



Although we should be sorry to lower the sub- 

 jects of our present observation in the estimation 

 of society, we think it undeniable that of all ver- 

 tebrated animals fishes exhibit the smallest ap- 

 parent symptoms of refined sensibility. Having no 

 elastic air to act upon, they are necessarily mute, 

 or nearly. so, and all the sweet sensations which 

 the delightful faculty of voice has called into being 

 among the higher tribes, are to them unknown. 

 Their glazed immoveable eyes, their fixed and bony 

 faces, admit of no playful range in their physio- 

 gnomical expression, of no variation connected with 

 emotion. Their ears, surrounded on every side by 

 the bones of the cranium, destitute of external 

 conch, without any internal cochlea, and composed 

 merely of certain sacks and membranous canals, 

 scarcely suffice for the perception of the loudest 

 sounds. Yet will they sink affrighted into the 

 darksome depth of lakes, beneath the banks of 

 rivers, or in oceans blue profound, when " sky 

 lowers and mutters thunder," and with elemental 

 fierceness the sheeted lightning flashes broad and 

 bright above their liquid dwellings. 





