Again Dunbar paused, as if his mind had wandered far away and was occupying itself with other subjects. After waiting for a minute or two Cal ventured to jog his memory:
“As we are not familiar with the bullhead—we who live down South—we don’t quite see the application of what you’ve been saying, Mr. Dunbar. Would you mind explaining?”
“Oh, certainly not,” quickly answered the man of science, rousing himself as if from sleep. “I was saying—it’s very ridiculous, but I’ve quite forgotten what I was saying. Tell me.”
“You were telling us about the bullhead’s possession—”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. You see fishes generally hunt their prey by sight, in the clear upper water and in broad daylight. They quit feeding as soon as it becomes too dark to see the minnows or other things they want to eat. As they hunt only by sight, they have no need of the senses of smell and taste, and so those senses are not developed in them. With the bullhead the thing is exactly turned around. He never swims or feeds in the upper waters. He lives always on or very near the bottom of comparatively deep water, in thick growths of grass, where sight would be of little use to him for want of light. He feeds almost entirely at night, so that those who fish for him rarely begin their sport before the dusk falls. In such conditions Mr. Bullhead finds it exceedingly convenient to be able to taste anything he may happen to touch in his gropings. So with him the sense of taste is the food-finding sense, and in the long ages since his species came into being that sense has been developed out of all proportion to the others. He has very little feeling and his nervous system is so rudimentary that if you leave him in a pail without water and packed in with a hundred others of his species, he seems to find very little to distress him in the experience. You may keep him in the waterless pail for twenty-four hours or more, and yet if you put him back into the pond or lake he will swim away as unconcernedly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But then all species of fish are among the very lowest forms of vertebrate creatures, so that they feel neither pain nor pleasure at all keenly.”
Suddenly Dunbar ceased speaking for a minute. Then he seemed to speak with some effort, saying:
“There are many other things I could tell you about fish, and if you’re interested, I’ll do so at another time. I’m very sleepy now. May I pass the night here?”
“Certainly. I’ll bring you some moss—”
“It isn’t at all necessary,” he answered, as he threw himself flat upon the earth and fell instantly into a slumber so profound that it lasted until Cal called him to breakfast next morning.