Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/452

436 there is a score or more of larger and shorter tubular organs, which are called the pyloric cæca. These open into the intestine, and their apertures may be seen on one side of it, occupying an oval space, in the middle of which they are arranged three in a row.

The chief food of the herring consists of minute Crustacea, some of them allied to the shrimps and prawns, but the majority belonging to the same division as the common Cyclops of our fresh waters. These tenant many parts of the ocean in such prodigious masses that the water is discolored by them for miles together, and every sweep of a fine net brings up its tens of thousands.

Everybody must have noticed the silvery air-bladder of the herring, which lies immediately under the backbone, and stretches from close to the head to very near the vent, being wide in the middle and tapering off to each end. In its natural state, it is distended with air; and, if it is pricked, the elastic wall shrinks and drives the air out, as as if it were an India-rubber ball. When the connections of this air bladder are fully explored, it turns out to be one of the most curious parts of the organization of the whole animal.

In the first place, the pointed end of the sac or crop into which the gullet is continued runs back into a very slender duct which turns upward and eventually opens into the middle of the air-bladder. The canal of this duct is so very small and irregularly twisted, that, even if the air-bladder is squeezed, the air does not escape into the sac. But, if air is forced into the sac by means of a blowpipe, the air passes without much difficulty the other way, and the air-bladder becomes fully distended. When the pressure is removed, however, the air-bladder diminishes in size to a certain extent, showing that the air escapes somewhere. And, if the blowing up of the air-bladder is performed while the fish is under water, a fine stream of air-bubbles may be seen to escape close to the vent. Careful anatomical investigation, in fact, shows that the air-bladder does not really end at the point where its silvery coat finishes, but that a delicate tube is continued thence to the left side of the vent, and there ends by an opening of its own.

Now, the air-bladder of all fishes is, to begin with, an outgrowth from the front part of the alimentary canal, and there are a great many fishes in which, as in the herring, it remains throughout life in permanent communication with the gullet. But it is rare to find the duct so far back as in the herring; and, at present, I am not aware that the air-bladder opens externally in any fishes except the herring and a few of its allies.

There is a general agreement among fishermen that herrings sometimes make a squeaking noise when they are first taken out of the water. I have never heard this sound myself, but there is so much concurrent testimony to the fact that I do not doubt it; and it occurs to me that it may be produced, when the herrings are quickly brought