114 ARISTOTLE THE FIRST SCALE-READER 
striking the opposite bank. Two of us lying hidden in the 
grass observed from different spots. 
The gun was fired eight feet, four feet, and three feet above 
the surface of the stream, which varied in breadth from eight 
to ten feet, and in depth from sixteen to nineteen inches. It 
was fired into the air and into the opposite bank (struck from 
four to two feet above the water) in a direct line above different 
fishes, lying either singly or in shoals from five to nine inches 
from the bottom in small pools or runs sixteen to nineteen 
inches deep. Care was taken to fire up stream, to prevent the. 
trout being startled by the flash of the cartridge. 
In no case did the trout take the very least notice, or give 
any sign of having heard the explosion or felt the concussion 
of the shot on the opposite bank, composed on three occasions 
of alluvial soil and on two of rock. Never once did a fish 
move or go down: in fact, in one of the experiments over a 
single well-grown trout, the fish was rising again to the natural 
fly in less than thirty seconds after the discharge of the gun.!} 
Aristotle almost certainly learnt dissection when young. 
His father belonged to the Asclepiads, an order of priest- 
physicians who are believed to have practised dissection and 
taught it to their children. The son’s extensive knowledge of 
the internal parts of mammals, birds, and fishes probably 
resulted from dissections. Mr. Lones names forty-nine animals 
and fishes which from the trustworthiness of the definite 
information imparted were (he holds) certainly dissected. Of 
these some five are fish. 
To the question whether Aristotle ever dissected the human 
body, the answer after examining. the evidence available 
must, I think, be in the negative, for three reasons. First : 
after describing the external parts of the human body he 
states that the internal parts are less known than those of 
animals, and that we must, in order to describe them, examine 
the corresponding parts of animals which are most nearly 
related to man. 
Second : his many mistakes—such as in the position of the 
1 The experiments conducted by Alfred Ronalds and recorded in his 
famous Fly-Fisher’s Entomology, London, 1862, had similar results. 
