102 Book of the Black Bass. 



mals, however, the auditory organ gradually sinks further and 

 further inward from the surface. Thus a new method for eon- 

 ducting the sound waves is necessitated." — ( Wiedersheim. ) 



"Many Teleostei (true fishes) have fontanelles in the roof of 

 the skull, closed by skin or very thin bone only at the place where 

 the auditory organ approaches the surface, by which means 

 sonorous undulations must be conducted with greater ease to the 

 ear." — ( Gunther. ) 



'■ In many Teleostei a. most remarkable relation obtains be- 

 tween the organ of hearing and the air-bladder. In the most 

 simple form, this connection is established in percoids and the 

 allied families, in which the two anterior horns of the air-bladder 

 are attached to fontanelles of the occipital region of the skull." — 

 (Gunther.) 



The air-bladder, in such cases, may, in a manner, per- 

 form the functions of a tympanum. 



I append a few sensible remarks from an article by W. 

 N. Lockington, in " Pacific Life :" 



" It appears to be not unlikely that fish take no notice of 

 sounds produced in the air, but it is not so easy, unless we can 

 argue the matter from a fish's point of view, to prove they do not 

 hear those sounds. Take the sense of sight as an illustration of 

 that of hearing. I have often amused myself by making believe 

 to strike a monkey that lived in a cage with a glass front. Accus- 

 tomed to such demonstrations, the monkey simply took no notice. 

 His bright eyes never even winked. Arguing, as was argued in 

 the fish case, I might say monkeys cannot see. 



" All fishes have an organ of hearing; not a rudimentary organ, 

 but one complete in its kind, and differing from ours only in its 

 degree of development; differing, in fact, much in the same way 

 that the brain, the heart, the intestines, the skeleton, the skin, the 

 limbs, or any other part of a fish differs from that of a quadruped 

 or from our own. 



" The microphone has gone far toward proving what philoso- 

 phers had previously become convinced of by deductive reasoning, 

 that there is no motion without sound, and therefore that sound 

 is present in numberless instances not evident to our senses. For 



