180 BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



cornea is almost flat, while in birds of prey, which have a 

 very extended range of vision, the cornea is quite convex. 



From the lack of analogy, from the great difference in 

 construction of the ocular and auditory apparatuses of 

 fishes and terrestrial animals, and from the wide difference 

 in the properties of the media of air and water, I am con- 

 vinced that the organs of the special senses of sight and 

 hearing in fishes are not well understood at the present 

 day ; and I am confident that future investigations will 

 prove them to be possessed of much greater acuteness of 

 vision and. hearing, than is now accorded them. 



It is a well-known fact that fishes are attracted by any 

 gay, bright, or glittering substance, as a finger-ring, a 

 sleeve-button, or a coin, and have deliberately swallowed 

 them when dropped in the water. I have caught Brook 

 Trout with wintergreen and partridge berries, the bright 

 scarlet color seeming to allure them, and I have even 

 caught them with a naked bright fish-hook ; but all this 

 does not prove that they were the victims of a myopic 

 mistake, or that in their near-sightedness they mistook 

 these various articles for something else; neither does it 

 prove that a Black Bass will grab at a trolling spoon, a 

 Bluefish snap at a bone squid, or a Spanish Mackerel 

 seize a metal or pearl troll under the delusion that they 

 are really choice shiners, or delicate piscatorial tidbits. 



A camel, it is said, will bolt all sorts of substances, as 

 metal, glass, stones, leather, etc., but when were his short- 

 comings attributed to short-sightedness? Our dogs will 

 often refuse good, clean food and hunt up an old dry bone, 

 a stone, an old shoe, or a stick, and will gnaw them with 

 delight, and even swallow them with evident gratification. 

 Birds will peck at and swallow bright beads, colored 



