The Penn's Grove record., 1883-11-10
NUMBER Id.
The Language OF Fishes.

Near Marblehead, Massachusetts, is
one of the best fishing spots in this
| neighborhood, and daylight found our
| fishers ON the ground ready for the
fray. Our skipper baited up the ground
with soft CLAIMS, and as the vessel
swung with the tide we began opera
lions. Lobster bait is used, and each
man has two lines, II on each side of
the dory. Nippers and two-poun,
blaekish come up thick and fast. Fin
ally a strong jerk tells of larger game
and after ten minutes of hauling and
being hauled we sight a fine cod. The
gait is brought out and skillfully in
serted by the skipper in its gill, to a
dot. Now a sculpin is drawn up, with
mouth open, to be reviled, and again a
cod, and so on until the sun is overhead
aud the slack biting tells us of a change
| of tide. Our naturalist never neglects
an opportunity to investigate the Gu
rious sounds uttered by several differ
ent species of sculpins that come up
are declared by him to be the voice of
the fish; in other words, its method of
communication. The subject is GER
tainly one of interest, and a specimen
is placed in water for later electrical
! experiments that will test the different
ntonations of its voice. Among the
fishes here that utter sounds are the
dogfish, the Gunner, angler, etc. The
former, as might be expected, utters a
short bark, something like that of a
dog. In all about fifty fishes are known
that have a language. Our skipper in
forms us that when he was "a whalin'
he has heard whales cry out, aud that
blackfsh utter a strange sound is a
common belief along the coast, but as
these are mammals it might be ex-
pected. 1t Is difficult to determine
how the sound is made. In some it is
due to the action of the pneumatic
duct and swimming-bladder, while in
others it may be made ~involuntarily by
the lips or the pharyngeal or inter-
maXiilary bones. In the curious trigla
that of the party landed the swim
ming-bladder has a diaphragm and
muscles for opening and closing it,
producing a gentle, murmuring sound.
In the catlislleS that are noted 'talkerS'
the sounds are produced by their fore
ing air from the air-bladder into the
esophagus. This is also the case with
the eel, whose voice is said to he the
most musical of all fishes, having a
metallic trill to it. Perhaps the loud
est-voiced fish is the grunt-a fish of
the genus H9mul0n-their noise having
been heard two hundred feet away.
That fishes uttered sounds was well
known To the a~ncients. Aristotle men-
tons a fish by the name Of choiros, OF
pig, as inhabiting the river Clitor, in
the Mediterranean, and as being one of
the fishes that have the power of emit
ting sounds. On a visit to Battocarla,
on the north coast of Ceylon, Sir
Emerson Tennent heard wonderful
tales of musical sounds that were
alleged to issue from the bottom of the
lake, and on the lake, i'll a boat, on a
calm night he distinctly heard, he says,
the sounds. They came up from the
water like the gentle thrills of a must
cal chord or the faintest vibrations OF a
wine-glass when its rim is rubbed by a
vet finger. 1t was not one sustained
note, but a multitude of tiny sounds,
each clear and distinct in itself. In
the days of old Rome eels were believed
to talk, and the Emperor Augustus
professed to understand their language.
The loudest sounds are made by the
pagonias, or drum-tish, and the priono-
tus, called the pig-fsh on the Jersey
coast, because of the loud croalls it
gives utterance to when drawn to the
shore in nets. Professor Baird, who
investigated this, has expressed the
opinion that the sounds came from the
belly of the fish. The malgre makes a
strange cooling noise. not unlike a
moan, accompanied by a sharp croak,
xuIi.l Ina lon,, bna.I NJ N 1a,th Of
two hundred feet. Another genus of
this fish is called by the Italians corvo,
or crow. The sound of a bell, which is
occasionally heard from the depths of
the Mediterranean Sea, is attributed
by some to the corvo, while Others
think that shelly mollusks produce
these singular sounds. The sleeper in
his berth has often been startled by
the peculiar noises made by the drum
fish on our own coast, and Sir John
Richardson says that he was prevented
from sleeping by the noise made by
these fish when off the coast of Caro-
lima.
Lieutenant John White also says
that on his voyage to China, when his
ship was anchored at the mouth of the
river Camboya, the sailors were much
astonished at the curious sounds that
issued from the water, resembling the
bass OF an organ mingled with the tones
of a bell, the croaking of an enormous
frog and the clang of "a immense harp.
These sounds swelled into a gentle
chorus on both sides of the ship and
were attributed by the interpreter to a
school of fish. A similar occurrence
in the South Sea was described by Baron
Humboldt. The sailors were greatly
terrified at about seven O'Clock in the
evening by an extraordinary noise in
the air, like the beating of tambourines,
followed by sounds which resembled
the escape of air from boiling liquid.
AT 8 O'Clock these strange sounds,
which, it wa judged, proceeded from
school of seIoenoides, ceased. The
gizzard shad, known scientifically as
the lorosoma, utters a distinct, vibra-
tory, whining sound. The mullet
utters a distinct note, often quite pro-
longed and accompanied by discharge
of air-bubbles.