BARON CUVIER. 125 



less can it change its dimensions, and accom- 

 modate itself to the distance of objects ; its iris 

 neither dilates nor contracts, and its pupil re- 

 mains the same in every degree of light. No 

 tear bathes this eye, no eyelid soothes or protects 

 it ; and, in fishes, it is but a feeble representation 

 of that beautiful, brilliant, and animated organ 

 of the higlier classes of animals. Procuring food 

 by swimming after a prey which also swims with 

 greater or lesser rapidity, having no means of 

 seizing this prey but by swallowing it, a deli- 

 cate sense of taste would have been useless to 

 fishes had nature bestowed it on them. But 

 their tongue, almost immoveable, often bony, or 

 armed with dentated plates, and only receiving 

 a few slender nerves, shows us that tliis organ is 

 as little sensible as it is little necessary. Smell 

 even cannot be as continually exercised by fishes 

 as by animals w^hich breathe air in a direct man- 

 ner, and whose nostrils are unceasingly traversed 

 by odoriferous vapours. Lastly, we come to the 

 touch, which, from the surface of their bodies 

 being encircled by scales, by the inflexibility of 

 the rays of their members, and by the dryness of 

 the membranes which envelope them, has been 

 obliged to seek refuge at tlie end of their lips ; 



