Account of the organ of hearing in fish / By John Hunter.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1782]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the organ of hearing in fish / By John Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/14 page 380
    j|8o Mr. hunter^ Account of Fifh, it being ftill a fubjedt of great difpute, whether fifh hear or not. Some time between the years 1750 and 1760, I obferved the organ of hearing in fifh ; and from that time to this, I only confidered 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 moft per fed! animals down to the mod imperfedt pofftffed of this organ*. As 1 do. not intend to give, in this paper, a full account of this organ in any one fifh, 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 ceconomy may think it deficient in the defcriptive parts. If it was a difficult t dk to expofe this organ in fifh, I fhould 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 alio, but fomewhat differently conftrudled from what it is in the fifh. The organs of hearing in this latter order of animals are placed on the fides of the fkull, or that cavity which contains the brain ; but the fkull itfelf makes no part of the organ, as it does in the quadruped and the bird. In fome fifh this organ is wholly furrounded by the parts composing this cavity, which in many is cartilaginous, the fkeleton of thefe fifh being * Preparations toilluftrate thefe facts have been ever fnrce (hewn in m.y collec- tion to the curious both of this country and foreigners: when in (hewing what- ever was new, or fuppofed to be new, the ears of fi(h were always confidered by me as one important article. like
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