Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-12-27
FISHES THAT HAVE VOICES.
SOME That Sing Concerts With . whole Or.
chestra Of Musical Instruments.

chestra Of Musical Instruments.
ssTT SEEMS RATHER FUNNY to speak of
i the voices Of fishes" said naturalist to q
writer for the STAR, "but many Of them do
certainly produce vocal sounds, as you your
self may have observed. Did you ever pull a
blue6sh into your boat and listen TO his croak-
ing complaints?
But it il not merely out Of water that many
fishes vocalize. They do so in their native ele-
ment ALSO and often in concert, as if highly ap-
preciating the really musical effects which they
not infrequenty produce. II you have ever been
aHost in southern waters you may have heard
big jewish beneath the anchored vessel in
the stiffness Of the night 60 boom boomr
monotonously. Under similar conditions the
well-known 'grunters will give elaborate
nocturnal performances, q whole school Of
them together, under the stern.
when the famous Humboldt visited the
South seas in 1903, about Up. m. on February 20
an extraordinary noise startled the crew. At
first il was like the beating Of many drums in
the distance and then the sounds seemed to
come from the ship ITSELF near the poop. To
begin with, it was imagined that the breakers
were at hand, and then that the vessel mad
sprung a leak. The noises continued for about
two hours, and NO one could guess how to
account for them.
In the narrative Of his voyage to the China
seas. in 1924, Lieut. White, U. S. n, mentions q
similar experience. At the mouth of river in
Cambodia the ships company was alarmed by
remarkable noises around the bottom of the
vessel. The sounds he SAYS. were like a
mixture of the bass Of the organ. the ringing
OF bells, the cultural notes of a great frog and
tones which the imagination might attribute to
IN enormous harp. The ship seemed actually
to trembe with the vibration. Steadily the
noises increased until they formed chorus
nd fha N,,hS
the ship sailed on, they diminished and finally
ceased. native interpreter stated that they
were made by kind of fishes which chung to
objects by their mouths.
''Sir j. Emerson Tennent tells Of visit he
made to Ceylon in l848, when he went in O boat
to hear some famous water music at Batticalva.
he was rowed quietly to the spot by moonlight,
where the sounds came up from the water like
the gentle thrills of musical chord or the faint
vibrations OF "a wine glass when the rim is
rubbed with moistened finger. It was not one
sustained note. but multitude Of tiny sounds,
the sweetest treble mingled with the lowest
bass The natives said that the music was
made by shell Il III at the bottom, which they
called the crying she'll
1T has been suggested that perhaps such
sweet and pleasing sounds from the water gave
rise to the myths of the mermaids and sirens.
the sailors Of old having the usual facility of
mariners in the invention OF pretty and poeti-
cal causes for everything.
"A writer in Notes and Queries says: In
the early part of December l called upon a
Quaker gentleman at Darlington for whom l
waited in a room in which stood a small aquar-
lum containing, along with the usual assort-
ment of sea anemones. star fish. DC. five fishes
not larger than minnows-a species of bien-
MES. l was subsequently informed. After
watching their motions for few minutes as
they fioated near the surface of the water, /
stopped down to examine them more nearly,
when, to my utter aInazcment, they simultan-
eously set up a shrek of terror loud and pierre
ing / think human being could hardly have
set mp much louder scream
AT Caidera. in Chill, musical cadences are
frequently heard to issue from the sea- rising
and falling fully four notes and resembling the
tones of harp strings mlngling with great deli
cacy and sweetness Out of 5000 kinds of fishes
In the world more than 300 are known to pro-
duce sounds. the naigres are famous for
their vocal powers az well az remarkable for the
size and complicated structure Of their air
biadders and the large hollows in their skulls.
These peculiarities may have something to do
with the loud whistlings and hummiEgs they
produce. The air bladder has some thing i'm
portant to do with the sounds fishes make,
though just what Is not certainly known Some
authorities think that the noises are made by
expelling air from one compartment of the
bladder into another. Others believe that they
are produced by the grinding together of the
tooth-Eke bones in the back of the fishs mouth
the bladder serving merely to increase the
volume OF sound. TO understand this, shut up
your ears tight with your two middle fingers
and grind your back teeth. You will notice
that the noise seems very loud. though it comes
not from the grinding bat from the vibration
Of the chewing or 'aldernanic' muscles.
Fishes are supposed to make these noises
for the purpose of attracting their mates. II is
said that fishermen often take fish during the
spawning season by initiating the sounds. For
merly it was believed that fishes had no ears,
but ANTAGONISTS have proved tina: they have
organs Of hearing. though not external ones
Carp are often called i'll ponds to feed by the
ringing of bell. Fishermen in some eastern
countries are said to attach little bells TO the
edges of their nets. which attract the fish by
their ringing. Many ancient writer's have de-
seribed the tsh's love of music. and Rondolet,
the famous naturalist, tells how on one occa-
sion he made school OF shad dance to his
6ddling."