No. 400.] THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FISHES. 279 
instinct and intelligence and some of the knottiest points in 
the entire range of biology. It has been observed in fishes 
that many of them have the habit of “pausing before the 
bait" prior to making a seizure with the jaws. This, accord- 
ing to Whitman, has its origin in fear, and he studied quite 
closely the corresponding, though somewhat different series of 
acts in Necturus. It is an instinctive timidity rather than a 
strategic approach of the fish not to alarm its prey and thus 
defeat capture. The long and careful series of experiments 
made by Professor Whitman in the case of numerous speci- 
mens of Necturus, both young and old, seem to prove very con- 
clusively that their intensely shy behavior, when approaching 
their prey or food, is due to an innate timidity or really fear. 
Young sunfishes (Lepomis) I have studied for many years at 
different times and places in aquaria, and I have observed the 
habit in the young of that species of “ pausing before the bait,” 
or really their food, prior to taking it. The same behavior 
obtains in the adult sunfishes, but in them it can be overcome 
by education to a large extent, for I have seen them immedi- 
ately attack in numbers one’s finger when placed in the water 
of the aquarium containing them; whereas, when the experi- 
ment was first tried, they evidently all stood in great fear of the 
object, however gently it was placed in the water. A study of 
the young and old of Chztodon in this connection and the method 
of some of the species of that genus of taking their prey would 
be interesting. 
In speaking of the marked timidity of Necturus in the tak- 
ing of its food or seizing its prey, Professor Whitman says: 
* If this series of acts represents an organic sequence, and if 
the behavior as a whole takes the form determined by the 
organization, as seems to me beyond reasonable doubt, we have 
an instinct the history of which may be coextensive with the 
evolution of the animal. We stand at the end of an intermi- 
nable vista. The specific peculiarities of organization in Nectu- 
rus form but an infinitesimal element of the problem. Scarcely 
a feature of the instinct belongs exclusively to Necturus. It 
is at least widely diffused among vertebrates, especially among 
fishes. The differences in the manner of execution among dif- 
