SENSES OF FISH, 3 



two degrees warmer than the element in which they live. It 

 is worthy of note that fish have small brains compared to the 

 size of their bodies — considerably smaller in proportion than in 

 the case of birds or mammalia, but the nerves communicating 

 with the brain are as large in fish, proportionately, as in birds 

 or mammaUa. The senses of sight and hearing are thought 

 to be well developed in fish, likewise those of smell and taste, 

 particularly smell, which chiefly guides them in their search for 

 food. Fish, I think, have a very keen scent ; .thus it is that 

 strong-smelling baits are successfid in fishing. The French 

 people, for instance, when fishiag for sprats and sardines, bait 

 the ground with prepared cod-roe, which adds largely to the 

 expense of that branch of fishing in the Bay of Biscay. As an 

 evidence of fish having a strong sense of smell, salmon-roe used 

 to be a deadly trout-bait. Some naturalists assert that fish do 

 not hear well, which is contrary to my own experience ; for after 

 repeated trials of their sense of hearing, I found them as quick 

 in that faculty as in seeing ; and have we not all read of pet 

 fish summoned to dinner by means of a bell, and of trouts 

 and cod-fish that have been whistled to their food like dogs 1 

 Water is an excellent conducter of sound : it conveys noise of 

 any kind to a great distance, and nearly as quick as air. 

 Benjamin Franklin often experimented on water as a conductor, 

 and arrived at the conclusion that its powers in this way are 

 wonderful. Most kinds of fish are voracious feeders, preying 

 upon each other without ceremony ; and the greatest difliculties 

 of anglers are experienced after fish have had a good feed, 

 when the practised artist, with seductive bait, cannot induce 

 them even to nibble. Many fish have a digestion so rapid 

 as to be comparable only to the action of fire, and on good feed- 

 ing-grounds the growth of fish corresponds to their power of 

 eating. In the sea there exists an admirable field for observing 

 the cannibal propensities of fish, where shoak of one species have 

 apparently no other object in life than to chase other kinds 

 with a view to eat them. 



To compensate for the waste of life incidental to their 

 place of birth and their ratio of growth, nature has en- 

 dowed this class of animals with enormous reproductive power. 

 Fish yield their eggs by thousands or millions, according to the 

 danger incurred in the progress of their growth. There is no- 

 thing in the animal world that can in this respect be compared to 

 them, except perhaps a queen bee, with fifty thousand young 



