FISH-TALK.
MAN favours wonders;" and this delight is almost endlessly exemplified in the stories of strange Fishes—of preternatural size and odd forms, which are to be found in their early history. In our present Talk we do not aim at re-assembling these olden tales, but propose rather to glance at recent accessions to our acquaintance with the study of Fish-life, and a few modern instances of the class of wonders.
Fishes, like all other animals, have a very delicate sense of the equilibrial position of their bodies. They endeavour to counteract all change in their position by means of movements partly voluntary and partly instinctive. These latter appear in a very remarkable manner in the eye; and they are so constant and evident in fishes while alive, that their absence is sufficient to indicate the death of the animal. The equilibrium of the fish, its horizontal position, with the back upwards, depends solely on the action of the fins, and principally that of the vertical fins. The swimming-bladder may enable a fish to increase or diminish its specific gravity. By compressing the air contained in it, the fish descends in the water; it rises by releasing the muscles which produced the compression. By compressing more or less the posterior or anterior portion of the bladder, the animal, at pleasure, can make the anterior or posterior half of its body lighter; it can also assume an oblique position, which permits an ascending or descending movement in the water.
There is a small fish found in the rivers of the Burmese Empire, which, on being taken out of the water, has the power of blowing itself up to the shape of a small round ball, but its original shape is resumed as soon as it is returned to the river.
Mr. St. John, in his "Tour in Eastern Lanarkshire," gives some curious instances of fish changing colour, which takes place with surprising rapidity. Put a living black burn Trout into a white basin of water, and it becomes, within half an hour, of a light colour. Keep the fish living in a white jar for some days, and it becomes absolutely white; but put it into a dark-coloured or black vessel, and although on first being placed there the white-coloured fish shows most conspicuously on the black ground, in a quarter of an hour it becomes as dark-coloured as the bottom of the jar, and consequently difficult to be seen. No doubt this facility of adapting its colour to the bottom of the water in which it lives, is of the greatest service to the fish in protecting it from its numerous enemies. All anglers must have observed, that in every stream the Trout are very much of the same colour as the gravel or sand on which they live: whether this change of colour is a voluntary or involuntary act on the part of the fish, the scientific must determine.
Anglers of our time have proved that Tench croak like frogs; Herrings cry like mice; Gurnards grunt like hogs; and some say the Gurnard makes a noise like a cuckoo, from which he takes one of his country names. The Maigre, a large sea-fish, when swimming in shoals, utters a grunting or piercing noise, that may be heard from a depth of twenty fathoms.
M. Dufossé asserts that facts prove that nature has not refused to all fishes the power of expressing their instinctive sensations by sounds, but has not conferred on them the unity of mechanism in the formation of sonorous vibrations as in other classes of vertebrated animals. Some fishes, he says, are able to emit musical tones, engendered by a mechanism in which the muscular vibration is the principal motive power; others possess the faculty of making blowing sounds, like those of certain reptiles; and others can produce the creaking noise resembling that of many insects. These phenomena M. Dufossé has named "Fish-noise."
The River Plate swarms with fish, and is the habitat of one possessed of a very sonorous voice, like that found in the River Borneo—the account of which is quoted by Dr. Buist from the Journal of the Samarang; and there is similar testimony of a loud piscatory chorus being heard on board H.M.S. Eagle, anchored, in 1845-6, about three miles from Monte Video, during the night.
That fishes hear has been doubted, although John Hunter was of this opinion, and has been followed by many observers. When standing beside a person angling, how often is the request made not to make a noise, as that would alarm the fish. On the other hand, the Chinese drive the fish up to that part of the river where their nets are ready to capture them by loud yells and shouts, and the sound of gongs; but old Æsop writes of a fisherman who caught no fish because he alarmed them by playing on his flute while fishing. In Germany the Shad is taken by means of nets, to which bows of wood, hung with a number of little bells, are attached in such a manner as to chime in harmony when the nets are moved. The Shad, when once attracted by the sound, will not attempt to escape while the bells continue to ring. Ælian says the Shad is allured by castanets. Macdiarmid, who declares that fishes hear as well as see, relates that an old Codfish, the patriarch of the celebrated fish-pond at Logan, "answered to his name; and not only drew near, but turned up his snout most beseechingly when he heard the monosyllable 'Tom;' and that he evidently could distinguish the voice of the fisherman who superintended the pond, and fed the fish, from that of any other fisherman." In the "Kaleidoscope" mention is made of three Trout in a pond near the powder-mills at Faversham, who were so tame as to come at the call of the person accustomed to feed them. Izaak Walton tells of a Carp coming to a certain part of a pond to be fed "at the ringing of a bell, or the beating of a drum;" and Sir John Hawkins was assured by a clergyman, a friend of his, that at the Abbey of St. Bernard, near Antwerp, he saw a Carp come to the edge of the water to be fed, at the whistle of the person who fed it. The Carp at Fontainebleau, inhabiting the lake adjoining the Imperial Palace, are of great size, and manifest a curious instinct. A Correspondent of the "Athenæum" remarks:—