THE APPARENT CRUELTY OF NATURE. 259 
Instances, again, in which the mouth of a fish has been 
severely lacerated by the hook, without the result of 
deterring it from a second visit to the too tempting bait, are 
well known to every angler. 
We have many recor ds. too, of a like insensibility to pain 
in the case of the shark. Upon one occasion, as described 
to my late father by an eye-witness of the occurrence, the 
cheek of one of these fish was torn completely open in a 
successful attempt to break away from the hook which had 
passed through it. Although the wound bled profusely, the 
creature seemed to feel no pain, and in the course of a very 
few minutes was again fast upon the very same hook which 
had already proved so disastrous to it. 
Among the higher animals, any serious bodily injury at 
once deadens the sense of hunger. A state of collapse 
almost immediately results from the shock ; and not until 
some little time after this has passed away can food again be 
taken. So, too, while a sufferer, from any cause, is enduring 
intense pain. While that pain lasts, to take food is a 
practical impossibility. But, in the case of these injured fish, 
there would appear to have been no pain, no shock, and 
consequently no collapse, for their sense of hunger was not 
dulled, and they almost immediately returned to the bait. 
Yet the wounds which they had received would have 
rendered a human being prostrate for days. So far, in fact, 
as we can gather from the present state of the evidence, fish 
seem practically as insensible to pain as the insects or the 
crustaceans. 
The writhings of an eel’s body, of course, after such an 
injury as the amputation of the head, are so obviously due to 
reflex action that it is quite unnecessary to take them into 
consideration. 
Even among the reptiles the sense of pain appears to be 
little, if at all, more developed. For among these animals 
we find perhaps the most remarkable instances of that singular 
instinct of self-mutilation in moments of danger to which we 
have already adverted in the case of the lobster. Our well- 
known British blindworm, or slowworm, for instance, in 
common with many other lizards, will voluntarily part with 
its tail if it be suddenly seized, and thus deprive itself of 
nearly half of its bodily substance ; and the vertebra at the 
point of severance are modified in a very remarkable manner, 
apparently with the sole purpose of rendering this self- 
mutilation practicable. The lizard itself, after the act of 
