l 9° THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



the internal ears of fishes, like those of the higher vertebrates, 

 are organs of hearing. Without further experimental evidence! 

 this view was accepted by the celebrated physiologist Miiller 

 (1848, p. 1238) in his well-known chapters on the physiology of 

 the senses, and by many other eminent authorities such as Owen 

 (1866, pp. 342 and 346), Giinther (1880, p. 116), and Romanes 

 (1892, p. 250). To these investigators the presence of the 

 internal ear, seemed, as it did to Hunter, sufficient ground for 

 assuming that fishes could hear. 



W ithin recent years, however, this opinion has been called 

 in question or even denied. Some of the grounds for this 

 change of view may be stated as follows. The English zoologist 

 Bateson (1890, p. 25 1) in some investigations on the sense organs 

 and perception of fishes, observed that the report from the blast- 

 ing of rocks caused congers to draw back a few inches, flatfishes 

 like the sole, plaice, and turbot to bury themselves, and pouting 

 to scatter momentarily in all directions. Other fishes seemed to 

 take no notice of the report. When the side of a tank containing 

 pollack or soles was struck with a heavy stick, the fishes behaved 

 as they did toward the report of the blasting. Pollack did not 

 respond, however to the sound made by rubbing a wet finger 

 on the glass window of an aquarium or to the noise made In' 

 striking a piece of glass under water with a stone, provided 



sounds of bodies moving in the water but no 

 Without knowledge of Bateson's observatioi 

 physiologist Kreidl (1895) carried out a serie: 



458) concluded that normal 

 produced either in the air or 

 to the shock of a sudden bio 



