46 
NATURE 
[Jay 19, 1870 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents, No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Strange Noises heard at Sea off Grey Town 
I Am glad to see that the vexed question of the noise heard 
from under the sea in various parts of the Atlantic and Pacific 
has been re-opened by a gentleman so accurate and so little dis- 
posed to credulity as Mr. Dennehy. The fact that this noise has 
been heard at Grey Town only on board the iron steamers, not 
on board the wooden ones, is striking. Doubtless if any 
musical vibration was communicated to the water from below, 
such vibration would be passed on more freely to an iron ship 
than to a wooden one. But I can bring instances of a noise 
which seems identical with that heard at Grey Town being 
heard not only on board wooden ships, but from the shore. 
I myself heard it from the shore, in the island of Monos, in 
the Northern Bocas of Trinidad. I heard it first about mid- 
night, and then again in the morning about sunrise. In both 
cases the sea was calm. It was not to be explained by wind, 
surf, or caves. The different descriptions of the Grey Town 
noise which Mr. Dennehy gives, will each and all of them suit 
it tolerably. I likened it to a locomotive in the distance rattling 
as it blows off its steam. The natives told me that the noise 
was made by a fish, and a specimen of the fish was given me, 
which is not Certriscus scolopax, the snipe-fish, but the trumpet- 
fish, or /¥stu/aria. Ino more believe that it can make the noise 
than Mr. Dennehy believes (and he is quite right) that the 
Centriscus can make it. 
This noise is said to be frequently heard at the Bocas, and at 
Point 4 Pierre, some twenty-five miles south; also outside 
the Gulf along the Spanish main as far as Barcelona, It was 
heard at Chagreasancas (just inside the Bocas) by M. Joseph, 
author of a clever little account of Trinidad, on board a schooner 
which was, of course, a wooden one, at anchor. ‘‘Immediately 
under the vessel,” he says, ‘‘ I heard a deep and not unpleasing 
sound, similar to those one might imagine to proceed from a 
thousand /Zolian harps; this ceased, and deep and varying notes 
succeeded; these gradually swelled into an uninterrupted stream 
of singular sounds, like the booming of a number of Chinese 
gongs under water ; to these sounds succeeded notes that had a 
faint resemblance to a wild chorus of a hundred human voices 
singing out of time in deep bass.” 
He had, he says, three specimens of the trumpet-fish, said to 
make the noise, either by ‘‘ fastening the trumpet to the bottom 
of a vessel or a rock,” or without adhering to any object. The 
whip-like appendage to the tail, which he describes, marks his 
specimens at once as /istularias. 
Meanwhile, it is but fair tosay that Mr. W. W. Spicer, a few 
weeks since, called attention to this ‘‘ Sirene,”’ or musical fish, 
in Hardwicke’s Science Gossif, commenting on an account of 
its being heard commonly in the Bay of Pailon, Esmeralda, on 
the Pacific shore, in latitude 4° north. I replied shortly in the 
same excellent magazine, and offered to write further, a promise 
which I should have redeemed, had not I understood that my 
learned friend Dr. Giinther, in the meanwhile, was about to 
ere on the matter himself, telling far more than I could have 
told. 
Another instance of this sound being heard on board a wooden 
ship (and this time again in the Pacific) is given (in p. 304 of 
Mr. Griffith and Colonel Hamilton Smith’s edition of Cuvier’s 
Fishes, on no less an authority than that of Humboldt who (say 
the editors and authors of the Appendix) did not suspect the cause. 
**On the 2oth of February, 1803, toward seven in the evening, 
the whole crew were astounded by an extraordinary noise, which 
resembled that of drums beating in the air. It was at first 
attributed to the breakers, Speedily it was heard in the vessel, 
and especially toward the poop. It was like a boiling, the 
noise of the air which escapes from fluid in a state of ebullition. 
They then began to fear that there was some leak in the vessel. 
It was heard unceasingly in all parts of the vessel, and finally, 
about nine o'clock, it ceased altogether. From the narration 
(says Cuvier) which we have extracted, and from what so many 
observers have reported touching various Sciznoids, we may 
believe that it was a troop of some of these species which occa- 
sioned the noise in question.” 
For there is, without doubt, a great deal of evidence to show 
that certain Scizenoids make some noise of this kind. The 
Umbrinas, or ‘‘maigres” of the Mediterranean and Atlantic are 
said to be audible at a depth of twenty fathoms, and to guide 
the fishermen to their whereabouts by their drumming. The 
fishermen of Rochelle are said to give the noise a peculiar térm, 
‘*seiller,” to hiss; and say that the males alone make it in 
spawning time; and that it is possible, by imitating it, to 
take them without bait. The ‘‘weak-fish” of New York, 
(Labrus squetaguee of Dr. Mitchell) is said to make a drumming 
noise. But the best known ‘‘drum-fishes” are of the genus 
FPogonias, distinguished from Umdbrina by numerous barbules 
under the lower jaw, instead of a single one at the symphysis. 
M. Cuvier names them Pogonias fusca, and mentions that ‘‘it 
emits a sound still more remarkable than that of the other 
Scizenoids, and has been compared to the noise of several 
drums.” The author of the Appendix states that these ‘‘ drum- 
fish” swim in troops in the shallow bays of Long Island; and 
according to Schcepf (who calls them Laérus chromis) assemble 
round the keels of ships at anchor, and then their noise is most 
sensible and continuous. Dr. Mitchell, however, only speaks of 
their drumming when taken out of the water. Species of the 
same genus, if not identical, are found as far south as the coast 
of Brazil; and it is to them, probably, that that noise is to be 
attributed which made the old Spanish discoverers report that at 
certain seasons the nymphs and Tritons assembled in the Gulf of 
Paria, and made the ‘‘ Golfo Triste glad with nightly music.” 
How this noise is produced, if the theory be true, I cannot 
say. Early naturalists looked, naturally, towards the large and 
strong swimming bladders, observing, at the same time, that 
these have no communication with the intestinal canal, nor with 
the exterior generally. ; 
It only remains to me now to quote the opinion of Dr. Giinther, 
to whose courtesy I owe the sight both of the fish and of its 
pharyngeal and vomerine teeth. He thinks, with later naturalists, 
that the noise might be made simply,by large shoals of ‘‘drums” 
grinding these teeth together, whether in masticating the crabs, 
&c., on which they feed, or for mere sport. 
I would, therefore, request Mr. Dennehy, or any officers of 
the Royal Mail steamers who may visit Grey Town, to try if 
they cannot catch a Pogonias or two. Of course, finding them 
there will not prove that they make the noise, but it will be at 
least one fresh link ina long chain of evidence. 
And so I leave the matter, apologising for having quoted from 
no later authority than the Cuvier of 1834, which is the only 
book accessible to me; and for myself, ‘* holding it for rashness 
hastily to avouch or deny aught amid such fertility of Nature’s 
wonders.” C, KINGSLEY 
[Mr. Kingsley will find references to all the various authors 
who have written on Scienoids generally, and ‘‘ Drum Fishes” 
especially, in Dr. Giinther’s ‘‘ Catalogue of Fishes,” vol. ii., p. 
270 et seg. |—ED. 
WITH reference to the communication published in last week’s 
NaTuRE, on ‘‘Strange Noises heard at Sea off Grey Town,” 
it does not appear necessary to refer these noises to any occult 
galvanic agency, or magnetic influence in connection with iron 
ships, although at first sight, and more especially as there is 
much ferruginous sand in the vicinity, and as the sounds are heard 
only in iron ships, and not in wood-built, copper-bottomed 
vessels, there seems ground for such anidea. The solution I 
would venture to offer is that these noises proceed from “ musical 
fish” or shells. 
Musical sounds proceeding from under water, agreeing in 
character with those described by Mr. Dennehy, appear to be 
known on the western coast of India and on the coast of Chili. 
A very interesting account of these musical sounds will be 
found in Sir Emerson Tennent’s work on Ceylon, from the 
author’s own experiences at Batticaloa in that island. His 
impressions as to the gentleness and harmony of the sounds are 
as vividly described as those of your correspondent from the 
Royal Mail Ship Shannon: and although Sir E. Tennent 
throws no light on the remarkable periodicity of the phenomenon, 
yet he gleaned by his inquiries that the sounds were heard 
at night, and most distinctly when the moon was nearest the 
full. Your readers will find the details at p. 468 ef seg., 2nd vol., 
Edition of 1859. 
The iron ship is, in all probability, from the thinness of the 
plates, a far better musical sounding-board than the thick- 
bottomed wooden ships, and here we may have the reason of the 
delicate sounds not being heard in the latter class of vessel. 
It has always appeared to me that this particular locality of 
ee tana 
