3 So Mr. hunter’s Account of 
F:fh, it being ffill a fubjedt of great difpute, whether filh hear 
or not. 
•Some time between the years 1750 and 1760, I obferved the 
orgm of hearing in filh ; and from that time to this, I only 
confide red it as a link in the chain of the varieties in this fenfe 
in different animals, in which there is a regular progreffion, 
viz. from the mod perfect animals down to the mod; imperfect 
poffeffed of this organ *. 
As I do not intend to give, in this paper, a full account 
of this organ in any one filh, or of the varieties in different 
fifh, but only of the organ in general ; thofe who may chufe 
to purfue this part only of the animal oeconomy may think 
it deficient in the defcriptive parts. If it w r as a difficult 
talk to expofe this organ in fifh, I Ihould perhaps be led 
to be more full in my defcription of it, but there is nothing 
more eafy than the expofure of this organ in this animal in 
general. 
As this paper is to be confined to this order of animals, I 
may be allowed juft to obferve here, that the clafs called fepia 
has this organ alfo, but fomewhat differently conffrudled from 
what it is in the filh. 
The organs of hearing in this latter order of animals are 
placed on the fides of the Ikufl, or that cavity which contains 
the brain ; but the Ikull itfelf makes no part of the organ, as it 
does in the quadruped and the bird. In fome filh this organ is 
wdiolly furrounded by the parts compoling this cavity, which 
in many is cartilaginous, the Ikeleton of thefe fifh being 
ftV* . •' ' L ■ ' / v • ^ • * 
* Preparations to illuftrate thefe fa&s have been ever fince (hewn in my collec- 
tion to the curious both of this country and foreigners : when in {hewing what- 
ever was new, or fuppofed to be new, the cars of fifh were always confidered by 
me as one important article. 
like 
