Fishes have sensitive Ears'. 39 



l^ond in such numbers that there was scarcely room for them 

 to lie by one another, and then he threw some spinach-seed 

 among them, which they devoured very greedily. This sat- 

 isfied me that fishes have the sense of hearing." Sir Walter 

 Rogers, an English gentleman, had a pond of pikes which 

 members of his household called together at pleasure ; and as 

 carnivorous fishes are more wild and untamable than are 

 those which feed on herbs, it offers the most palpable proof 

 that fishes hear. 



M. Lebault advises fish culturists not to permit shooting 

 about the ponds for wild-fowl, etc., as it frightens, injures, 

 and destroys the fish. This opinion is also entertained by 

 celebrated physiologists ; and John Hunter, who describes the 

 ear of fishes — always, he says, important — as consisting of a 

 gristly substance, very hard and firm in parts, and in some 

 species crusted over with a thin plate of bone, so as not to 

 permit it to collapse. The ear of fishes he also remarked to 

 possess the singular peculiarity of increasing with the size 

 of the individual, whereas in quadrupeds it is nearly as large 

 in the young as in the full-grown animal. 



" When in Portugal," said Dr. Hunter, " in 1762,1 observed 

 in a nobleman's garden near Lisbon a small fish-pond full 

 of different kinds of fishes. Its bottom was level with the 

 ground, and was made by forming a bank all round, with a 

 shrubbery close to it. While lying on the bank seeing the 

 fish, I desired- a gentleman whp was my companion to go be- 

 hind the shrubs (that there be no reflection from the flash) 

 and fire his gun. The moment the report was made the fish 

 seemed universally affected, for they vanished immediately, 

 raising, as it were, a cloud of mud from the bottom. In 

 about five minutes afterward they began to appear and 

 swim about as before." 



The discussions of Dr. Munro, Geoffroi, Comparetti, Scarpa, 

 Weber, and De Blainville, may be referred to, as their works 

 fully settle the question in favor of hearing in fishes. Weber 

 discovered a communication between the ear in fishes and 



