Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/454

438 into its intestine. And, as I have already suggested, it may be that the narrow posterior canal which leads from the air-bladder to the exterior is a sort of safety-valve allowing the air to escape, when the fish, rapidly ascending or descending, alters the pressure of the water upon the contained air.

This hypothesis may be put forward with some show of probability, but I really find it difficult to suggest anything with respect to the physiological meaning of the connection between the air-bladder and the ear. Nevertheless such an elaborate apparatus must have some physiological importance; and this conclusion is strengthened by the well-known fact that there are a great many fishes in which the air bladder and the ear become connected in one way or another. In the carp tribe, for example, the front end of the air-bladder is connected by a series of little bones with the organ of hearing, which is, as it were, prolonged backward to meet these bones in the hinder end of the skull. But here the air-bladder, which is very large, may act as a resonator; while in the herring the extreme narrowness of the passages which connect the air-bladder with the ear renders it difficult to suppose that the organ can have any such function.

In addition to the singular connection of the ear with the exterior by the roundabout way of the air-bladder, there are membranous spaces in the walls of the skull by which vibrations can more directly reach the herring's ear. And there is no doubt that the fish is very sensitive to such vibrations. In a dark night, when the water is phosphorescent or, as the fishermen say, there is plenty of "merefire," it is a curious spectacle to watch the effect of sharply tapping the side of the boat as it passes over a shoal. The herrings scatter in all directions, leaving streaks of light behind them, like shooting-stars.

The herring, like other fishes, breathes by means of its gills—the essential part of which consists of the delicate, highly vascular filaments which are set in a double row on the outer faces of each of the gill-arches. The venous blood, which returns from all parts of the body to be collected in the heart, is pumped thence into the gills, and there exchanges its excess of carbonic-acid gas for the gaseous oxygen which is dissolved in sea-water. The freedom of passage of the water and the great size and delicacy of the gills facilitate respiration when the fish is in its native element; but the same peculiarities permitting of the rapid drying and coherence of the gills, and thus bringing on speedy suffocation, render its tenure of life, after removal from the water, as short as that of any fish. It may be observed, in passing, that the wide clefts behind the gill-covers of the herring have some practical importance, as the fish, thrusting its head through the meshes of the drift-net, is caught behind them, and can not extricate itself. In the herring, the upper end of the last gill-cleft is not developed into a sac or pouch, such as we shall find in some of its near neighbors.