70 ANGLING. 



he observes, " has been seen to approach and after- 

 wards turn away from a stale gudgeon, when at the 

 distance of a foot from his nose, as if perfectly 

 aware, at that distance, of the real condition of the 

 intended prey." It is, at the same time, as clear 

 as water, that if he did not smell the gudgeon, he 

 at least saw it ; and there may be just as much dif- 

 ference in a pikers eye between a fresh fish and one 

 long kept, as in the eye of man between a young 

 woman and an old one neither act of discrimina- 

 tion in any way depending on the sense of smell. 

 Mr. Couch, an excellent and well-known ichthyo- 

 logical observer, is said to have perceived in a large 

 fifteen-spined stickle-back, which he kept in a glass 

 vessel, that the opening and closing of the nostrils 

 were simultaneous with the action of the gill-covers, 

 and he felt convinced from his observations, that 

 the fluid was received and rejected for the purpose 

 of sensation. 



SECTION X. 



Organs of Taste in Fishes. 



IN regard to the sense of taste, so essential to 

 the happiness both of man and beast, it is obvious 

 that as fishes, with few exceptions, swallow their 

 food rapidly and with little mastication, their per- 

 ception of that faculty must be by no means either 

 acute or deliberate. The same inference may be 



