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.

    9/14 page 383
    of which is fmall, and placed on the upper flat furface of the head; but it is not every genus or fpecies of fifh that has the external opening. The nerves of the ear pafs outwards from the brain, and appear to terminate at once on the external furface of the fwel- ling of the femi-circular tubes above defcribed. They do not appear to pafs through thofe tubes fo as to get on the infide, as is fuppofed to be the cafe in quadrupeds; I fhould therefore very much iufped, that the lining of thofe tubes in the qua** drupedis not nerve, but a kind of internal periofteuni. As it is evident that fifh poflefs the organ of hearing, it be- comes unneceflary to make or relate any experiment made with live fifh which only tends to prove this, faff ; but I will mention one experiment, to fhew that founds affed them much, and is one of their guards, as it is in other animals. In the year 1762, when I was in Portugal, I obferved in a nobleman’s garden, near Lifbon, a fmall fifh-pond, full of different kinds of fifh. Its bottom was level with the ground, and was made by forming a bank all round. There was a fhrubbery clofe to it. Whilftl was laying on the bank, obferving the fifh fwim~ ming about, 1 defired a gentleman, who was with me, to- take a loaded gun, and 2'o behind the (limbs and fire it. The reafon for going behind the fhrubs was, that there .might not be the lead refledion of lipht. The infant the report was made, the fifh appeared- to he all of one mind, for they vanifhed. inftant-aiieoufly into the mud at the bottom, railing as it were a. cloud of mud. In about five minutes after they began to appear, till the whole came forth again.
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