Nov. 7, 1.903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
363 
son, in some investigations on the sense organs and per- 
ception of iishes, observed that the report from the blast- 
ing of rocks caused congers to draw back a few inches, 
flat fishes (b'ke the sole., plaice, and turbot) to bury 
themselves, and pouting to scatter momentarily in all 
directions; other fisbes seemed to take no notice of the 
report. When the side of a tank containing pollock or 
soles was struck with a heavy stick, the fishes behaved 
as they did toward the report of the blasting. Pollock 
did not respond, however, to the sound made by rubbing 
n wet finger on the glass window of an aquarium or to the 
noise made by striking a piece of glass under water with 
a stone, provided the means of producing the noise was 
not seen by the fishes. Bateson concluded that, while 
it may be regarded as clear that fishes perceive the sound 
of sudden shocks and concussions when these are severe, 
they do not seem to hear the sounds of bodies moving in 
the water but not seen b}- them. 
Without knowledge of Bateson's observations, Kreidl 
carried out a series of experiments with the view of test- 
ing the powers of hearing in the goldfish. This species 
was chosen because of the ease with which it could be 
kept in the laboratory, and, further, because it is one of 
those fishes that have long been reputed to come at the 
sound of a bell. After an extended series of experiments, 
Kreidl concluded that normal goldfish never respond to 
sounds produced eitlier in the air or in the water, though 
they do react to the shock of a sudden blow given to 
the cover of the aquarium. Individuals rendered ab- 
normally sensitive by strychnine gave no response to the 
sound of a tuning-fork or a vibrating-rod, even when 
these were in contact with the water, though tlie fishes 
responded at once to such slight shocks as tapping the 
aquarium, etc., or even clapping the hands vigorously in 
the air. 
i'o test whether these responses were dependent upon 
(lie auditory nerves, Kreidl removed these nerves and the 
attached ear-sacs from a numl^er of individuals, and, 
after poisoning them with strychnine, subjected them to 
.-.timulation by sound. In all cases they were found to 
respond precisely as the poisoned animals with ears did. 
Kreidl, therefore, concluded that goldfishes do not hear 
by the so-called ear, but that they react to sound-wave.^ 
by means of an especially developed cutaneous sense, or, 
to put it in other Avords, the goldfish feels sound but does 
not hear it. 
After -having reached this conclusion, Kreidl was led to 
take up a specific case of the response of fishes to the 
sound of a bell, and an opportunity for doing this was 
found at the Benedictine monastery in Krems, Austria. 
Here the trout of a particular basin were said to come 
for food on the ringing of a bell. Kreidl, however, found 
that they would assemble at sight of a person and without 
the ringing of the bell. If they were not then fed, they 
soon dispersed, and no amount of bell-ringing would in- 
duce them to return. If, however, a pebble or a small 
piece of bread was thrown into the Avater they immediately 
swam vigorously toward the spot where the disturbance 
had occurred. Moreover, if a person approached the basin 
without being seen and rang the bell vigorously no 
response was observed. From these facts Kreidl con- 
cluded that the assemblage of the fishes was brought 
about through sight and the cutaneous sense, and not 
through hearing, and that the conclusion reached with the 
goldfish might be extended to other kinds of fishes. 
Kreidl's conclusions were supported by the observations 
of Lee, who studied the reactions of several species of 
fishes to such sounds as the human voice, the clapping 
of hands, and the striking of stones together in air and 
under water. In all of his experiments Lee obtained no 
evidence whatever of the existence of a sense of hearing, 
as the term is usually employed, although he found thai 
the fishes were exceedingly sensitive to gross shocks, such 
a.s the jarring of their tank or concussions upon its walls. 
Lee, moreover, called attention to the fact that the papilla 
acustica basilaris, which is the special organ of hearing 
in the internal ears of the higher vertebrates, did not 
occur in the fishes. From the observations and experi- 
ments of Bateson and of Kreidl, and from his own work, 
Lee believed that the conclusion was justified beyond 
doubt that fishes do not possess the power of hearing, in 
the sense in which the terra is ordinarily used, and that 
:he sole function of the ear in fishes is equilibration. _ 
The generalization to be draAvn from the work just 
summarized, namely, that fishes do not hear, though they 
may respond to sound-waves by the skin, has seemed to 
me not wholly in accord with certain well known facts in 
the natural history of these animals. Among these facts 
may be mentioned the undoubted ability on the part of 
some fi.shes to make sounds. If a fish has this power it 
might naturally be supposed to hear the sounds it makes. 
Lee has called attention to the small number of sound- 
producing fishes as evidence against the view that fishes 
in general hear. But the fact that there are such fishes 
ha.s' always appealed to rae in quite the reverse way, and 
should, in my opinion, serve to indicate the species most 
worthy of attention in any investigation of the sense of 
hearing. It must be admitted, however, that fishes may 
iicssiblAr produce sounds that they themselves cannot 
hear, but that other animals may hear and take warning 
from. Thus when small swt;llfish are thrown into a tank 
containing hungry scup, they are immediately set upon 
liv the latter. In defense the swellfishes inflate themselves 
with sea water till their tegmentary spines stand out 
rigidly, and at the same time they make a peculiar sound 
by gritting the two front teeth of the lower jaw against 
the inner surface of those of the upper jaw. It is not 
known that this sound is heard by the swellfish, though 
it may be. All that one can say with certainty is that 
the sound seems to be directed against the foe. for it i:; 
made, so far as I know, only when the swellfish is mo- 
lested. Granting, however, that the swellfish does not 
hear its own sound, one would still be rash to conclude 
that this was an argument against the hearing of fishes, 
for the vast majority of animals toward which the sound 
is directed are fishes themselves, and these presumably 
hear the sounds. 
.\nolher good instance of the production of sound by a 
li.'^^h is fimnd in the squcteaguc or wcakfish. The grunting 
.noise made bv this fish is, however, prfxhiced only by the 
males, and this speciali/.atiun is very dilhcull to under- 
si and unless one assumes an ability on the part of one or 
Ml her sex to hear. Since the sounds made by both the 
swellfish and the squeteague are in no sense shocks or 
roncussions, but resemble more tloselj',. in rat? of vibra- 
tion and in intensity, such sounds as might be obtained 
from the ordinary action of an instrument like a tuning- 
fork of low pitch, it seems to me that they afford evi- 
dence in favor of the sense of hearing rather than the 
reverse. 
A second reasoa for questioning the generalization ad- 
vocated by Kreidl, and by Lee, is the character of the 
observations upon which it is based. Both authors state 
that no positive evidence in favor of hearing could be 
obtained. But it must be borne in mind that in many ani- 
mals known to possess a sense of hearing the auditory 
reflexes are perhaps the least conspicuous of any con- 
nected with the more important sense organs, and that 
consequently the most careful scrutiny of the movements 
of fishes must be made before one can with certainty de- 
clare that hearing is absent. A perusal of the papers 
already summarized led me to the conclusion that some- 
thing more might be attained in this direction, and I 
therefore resolved to give particular attention to the re- 
actions of a few fishes with the A-iew of ascertaining 
whether or not they showed any evidence of hearing. 
At the outset I thought it best to experiment on some 
common sound-producing species, and for this purpose 
I did some preliminary work on the swellfish, the sque- 
teague, and the sea robin. To all of these, practical ob- 
jections were found, and I was at last obliged to abandon 
them for fishes that produce no sounds. Among these, 
three species were found to be especially sensitA^e to slight 
vibrations — the kingfish (Menticirrhns saxatilis), and the 
two common species of killifish (Fundulus majalis and /'". 
kctcroclitus) . Because of the great abundance of F. 
lieterocHtus, the ease with which it could be operated 
upon, and its great hardiness, I chose it for study, and 
the obserA'ations recorded on the following pages, unless 
otherwise stated, refer to this species. 
The ears in Fundulus heteroclilus. — When a tank con- 
taining a number of Fundulus heteroclitus \s struck with 
the open hand so that the fish cannot see the moA^ement 
of striking, they respond to the vibrations by springing 
suddenly an inch or so through the Avater. The question 
to be considered is whether these Anbrations stimulate the 
fishes through the skin, the lateral-line organs, the ears, 
or some combination of these. If it could be shoAvn that 
the ears Avere not stimulated by the vibrations, it seems to 
me that we Avould have evidence pointing to the conclu- 
sion that the fishes did not hear. If, on the other hand, 
it could be demonstrated that the vibrations did stimulate 
the ears, the evidence would be conclusive that the ani- 
mals possessed the sense of hearing. To test these points 
considerable experimentation was necessary. 
Although the experiments already described remove 
CA'ery reasonable doubt from my mind as to the ability of 
these fishes to hear, the objection may still be raised 
that the conditions under which they were carried out 
were so artificial that they may be said to have almost no 
bearing on the ordinary habits of Fundulus, and it must 
be admitted that the relatively small Afolume of water 
in the aquarium and the character of its Avails as reflecting 
surfaces for sound, may possibly have introduced factors 
to Avhich the fishes, in their natural surroundings, Avere not 
accustomed. To ascertain how much weight should be 
given to this objection the following experiment was 
tried. The sounding apparatus, consisting of the sound- 
ing board and the bass V\o\ string, was taken from the 
aquarium and set up in the open water of the outer pool 
at the Fish Commission Avharf. The fish cage Avas hun.g 
at a distance of 50 centimeters (20 inches) from the 
sounding board and toward the center of the pool, which 
is about 100 feet wide. The sound, therefore, was as 
unrestricted as that which naturally reaches these fishes. 
On experimenting with normal fishes, fishes without ears, 
and those with insensitive skins, results Avere obtained 
essentially like those observed in the aquarium, and I 
therefore concluded that the restriction of the Avater in 
the aquarium played no essential part in the results ob- 
tained from that apparatus. There is, thus, good reason 
to believe that Fundulus hcteroclitUs not only hears, but 
that for it hearing is a normal process. 
G>ncIusions Concerning the Lateral-line Organs and the Skin^ 
The observations on Fundulus recorded in the preced- 
ing pages give no support to the view of P. and F. 
Sarasin that the lateral-line organs are to be regarded 
as accessory ears, for individuals in which the eighth 
nerves had been cut and in which the lateral-line organs 
Avere intact did not respond to the sound-Avaves from a 
tuning-fork to. Avhich fishes with ears reacted Avith cer- 
tainty. T have also seen no reason to suppose that the 
lateral-line organs are especially connected Avith the pro- 
duction of gas in the air-bladder, as suggested by Richard' 
or that they are particularly concerned Avith equilibration, 
as advocated by Lee. Since they are stimulated by slight 
disturbances in the water that do not affect the general 
cutaneous sense organs, I can not agree Avith Merkel in 
classing them as tactile organs. Their appropriate stim- 
ulus is a slight mass-movement of the water, Avhich may 
or may not be vibratory, and which induces the fish, to 
swim into deeper regions. This form of stimulus is of 
precisely the kind that Avas attributed to these organs by 
Schulze (1870), but I have not been able to confirm 
Schulze's further opinion that current and surface waA'c 
moA-ements stimulate these parts. Such stimuli certainly 
do affect the general cutaneous .sense organs, but whether 
or not they influence the lateral-line organs I am unable to 
say. 
Summary. 
1. Normal Fundulus heteroclitus reacts to the sound 
Avaves from a tuning-fork of 128 vibrations per second by 
movements of the pectoral fins and by an increase in the 
respiratory rate. It probably also responds to sound 
Avaves by caudal-fin movements and by general locomotor 
movements. 
2. Individuals in which the eighth (auditory) netves 
have been cut do not respond to sound waves from the 
tuning-fork. 
3. The absence of responses to sound waves in individuals 
Avitii several eighth nerves is not due to the shock of the 
(jperation or to other secondary causes, but to the loss 
of the ear as a sense organ. 
4. Fundulus lit-tt-mclitns therefore possesse.'! the .sense 
of hearing. 
5. The ears in this species are also organs of prime im- 
portance in equilibration, 
"0. Norrual fundjilm h^tergcUtus swims dowtiAvard from. 
the top of the Avater and remains near the bottom when 
the aquarium in which it is contained is giA'en a slight 
noiseless motion. 
7. Individuals in which the nerves to the lateral-line 
organs have been cut will SAvim upward or remain at the 
top while the aquarium is being gently and noiselessly 
moved. 
8. The Lateral-line organs in this species are probably 
stimulated by a slight i:nass movement of the water 
against them. They are not stimulated by sound waves 
such as stimulate the ears. 
9. Individuals in Avhich the nerves to the lateral-line 
organs have been cut swim doAA^mvard and thus escape 
from regions of surface AvaA^e action. They also orient 
perfectly in swimming against a current. Since surface 
waves and current action stimulate fishes in which the 
nerves to the lateral-line organs and to the ears have 
been cut, these motions must stimulate the general 
cutaneous nerA'es (touch). 
10. The vibrations from a bass-viol string when trans- 
mitted to Avater stimulate the ears and the lateral-line 
organs of Fundulus. They also stimulate mackerel and 
menhaden, but not the smooth dogfish, which responds 
only when in contact with solid portions of an aquarium 
subjected to Anbrations. 
Bass Sizes and Weights. 
The following list ot black bass reported in a com- 
petition given by the Toronto Star, affords some data 
for comparing sizes and Aveights. Mr. LIugh Neilson 
writes: "In 1901 the winning small-mouth, caught at 
Hastings, on the Trent River, weighed 6 pounds 4 
ounces. It was pushed hard by another caught in Lake 
Rosseau, Muskoka, which I saw weighed two or three 
hours afterward, bringing the scales down at 6 pounds 
,3 ounces. If weighed promptly, it would have gone 
another ounce, without doubt. Last year I think the 
heaiviest fish was under 6 pounds." 
The Star's record follows: The $15 prize rod offered 
by the Toronto Star to the person catching the largest 
small-mouthed black bass in Ontario on or before Sept. 
15, will be presented to John James Irwin, a young 
farmer of Smith township, in Peterboro county, who, 
on July 29, in Clear Lake, while fishing AAnth a hook 
and line and a cedar pole, caught the largest small- 
mouth black bass of the season. 
The competition closed on Sept. 15, and the delay 
that has occurred in announcing the result has been 
due to the work of verifying the particulars about the 
winning fish. Mr. Irwin lives forty miles back of 
Peterboro, and when he made his catch he did not 
know about the prize rod offered by The Star, so the 
fish was made ready to be cooked, salted and put away, 
the head erected on a pole in the sun to dry. Next day 
he spoke of his catch to Mr. D. Moore, of the Crown 
Timber Lands Office, Peterboro, Avho told him that 
he should enter it for the prize rod, Avhich he there- 
fore did, making an affidavit to the facts before Mr. 
D. W. Dumble, K. C, who sent it in. The head of the 
fish was secured by us,, and found to be that of a 
small-mouth black bass. As to its Aveight and measure- 
ments, we have secured four separate affidavits, one 
from Irwin himself, one from his mother, one from 
Mr. Philip Card, a witness, and another from Mr, 
Adam Hall, of Peterboro, who, accompanied by Mr. 
Benjamin Sherley, of Peterboro, Avent to the Card 
home in CaA'endish townshi]), and tested the scales 
on which the fish was weighed. Through the kindness 
of these gentlemen and of Mr. D. W. Dumble, K. C, 
of Peterboro, the scales were not only tested, but 
were sent to us to be tested at this office. 
The weight of this fish was so large that very care- 
ful inquiries were made by us before determining that 
Mr. IrAvin had fairly earned and was entitled to the 
rod. We are perfectly satisfied of that, and the prize 
will accordingly be sent to him, so that next year he 
Avill whip Clear Lake Avith something better than a 
cedar pole. But he is not likely to catch anything big- 
ger than he got on July 29. The fish entered for the 
prize Avsre as follows: 
John James Irwin, Smitli Towiislilp, Peterboro county, a black 
bass, caught on July 29, in Clear L.alce, Cavendish Township, 
il3 inches long, 17 inches in circumference, weight 7 pounds. 
J. D. Ree.sor, Camplj?llfprd, a small-mouth black bass, caught 
in' Bellmont l^ake, Labor Da.y, Sept. 7, weight 6 pounds 5 ounces. 
C. Swartz, Buffalo, N. Y., on July 23 caught a small-moutlt 
bUick bass, in Silver Lake, Port Carting, 21 inches long, 17 inches 
in circumference, weight G pounds 4 ounces. 
E. Ct, Rooke, Port iroi)e, on July 31 caught a small-mouth 
Idack bass, in Rice Lake, '>2% inches long, 15% inches ia circum- 
ference, weight i) pound.s % ounce. 
Fred Herchmer, Bobcaygeon, caught a small-mouth black bass, 
in Pigeon Lake on Aug. 21, length 20 inches, circumference 14 
inches, weight 6 pounds. 
John Brown, Toronto, July 30, caught in Bellmont Lake a 
.small-mouth black bass 19*4 inches long, 16 inches girth, weight 
5 pounds 9 ounces. 
Mrs. E. X. Hays, Grafton, Pa., on Aug. 17 caught a small- 
mouth black Ijass at Jackson's I'biiit inches long-, 14% inches 
girth, weight 5 pounds S ounces. 
.\. M. Phillips, Pittsburg, Pa., Sept. 1 caught a small-mouth 
black bass in Stony Lake 21 inclies long, UV2 inches girth, weight 
5 pounds S ourices. 
F. H. Smith, Toronto, Sgpt. 7 caught in Tobacco Lake, Mani- 
toulin Island, a small-mouth black bass, 21% inches long, I51/2 
inches girth, weight 5 pounds 7 ounces. 
\\'m. Leathcrman, Pittsburg, Pa.. Sept. 12 caught a small- 
mouth black bass in Bass Lake, near Orillia, 22 inches long, 17 
inches girth, weight 5 poinids 14 oimces. 
Miss Wardrobe, Lindsay, on July 2S caught a. small-mouth black 
bass at Rosedale, on Balsam Lake, length 20 inches, 17 inches 
girtli, weight 5 pounds 8 ounces. 
Alex. Purser, Bensfort, on July 3 caught a small-mouth black 
bass in Rice Lake 21 inches long, IS inches girth, weight 5 
pounds "Vz ounces. 
Chas. E. Siddle, Stratford, on July 1 caught a small-mouth 
l)lack bass 22 inches loiigj W/z inches girth, weight 5 pounds 
(J ounces. 
Mrs. Isaac VV. Cakefair. New York, on Sept. 17, at Charleston, 
Ont., caught a small-mouth black bass 20% inches long, weight 
5 pounds 3 ounces. 
Lieut. A. W. Jamieson, Kingston, on Aag. 12 caught a small- 
mouth black bass in Bass Lake 19% inches long, 141^ inches 
girth, weight 5 povnuis 3 ounces. 
W. li. Maibour, Buffalo, N. Y., on Aug, .13 cauglit a small- 
moulh black bass in Lake Simcoc, length 30 jnches, girth 15 
inches, weight 5 pounds. 
Mi-s. A. Wilcox, Toronto, on Aug, 18 caught a small-mouth 
blaclc bass in Trout ijake, near North Bay, weight 5 pounds. 
John K. Kamstly, Hackensack, N. Y.. on July 22 caught a 
small mouth black bass in Grippiii Lake, length 20'/^ inches, 
girth 13V2 inches, weight 4 pounds 14 ounces. • 
A- J. \\'ilcox, Byng Inlet, on July 12 caught a small-mouth 
1)la.ck ..bass, length 19%. inches, girth It inches, weight 4 pound^ 
13 oynces. ' 
