72 Res angusta domi in fishes. Chapt. v. 



year. Those that have heen hook-pricked, not an incon- 

 siderable number certainly, are not improbably able to 

 communicate the fact to the others, and not till a large 

 proportion of the community have thus suffered, is much 

 weight likely to be attached to their warnings, in opposi- 

 tion to the cravings of nature. 



Certainly there is much to be urged in the contrary 

 direction also, as for instance the fact that fish will keep 

 on biting in one particular spot, though they see their 

 neighbours being pulled out before their very eyes. Still 

 men do things quite as foolish. They engage in trades 

 dangerous to life, and continue to follow them, though 

 they see their fellow-workmen falling off around them 

 from diseases which have been calculated to result with 

 certainty after a stated number of years. If the pres- 

 sure of circumstances, res angusta domi, be too strong for 

 the wisdom of the human being, why should not the crav- 

 ings of nature be allowed to have outweighed the caution 

 of the fish, rather than be deduced as conclusive evidence 

 that he knows not the risk he is running. It is at least an 

 open question, and analogy and observation incline me to 

 the belief that fish can communicate ideas to each other. 



I may not be able to deduce as many, or as striking 

 examples, as in the case of birds or beasts, but that, as I 

 have already shewn, is the natural consequence of fish 

 inhabiting an element in which we are necessarily less 

 at home than in our own. 



It is not necessary to my argument that the commu- 

 nication should take place by means of oral sounds as 



