FISH CALLED TO DINNER

Evening Star, Issue 20853, 24 July 1931, Page 10

FISH CALLED TO DINNER

.WHEN THE BUZZER BUZZES. Science is always surprising us with something now, and the latest discovery is that fish can bo made to come to dinner at tho sound of a buzzer. , This and a great deal of other interesting information ,is_ contained in an article on 1 Studies in Conditioned Responses in Fishes ' in the current number of tho Journal of the Marine Biological Association. It is by Mr H. 0. Bull, biologist at the Dove Maryio Laboratory, Cullorcoats, Northumberland.

A series of experiments was carried out to determine whether fish would respond to tho stimuli of sound, light, ami taste in their feeding habits. For the sound test a bottle was placed at one end of a tank containing, food and a small electric buzzer. A w’rasso inside the tank quickly learned to associate the buzzer with his dinner, stopping work and hurrying to the bottle as soon as be beard the familiar sound.

If dinner was not ready when ho arrived bis resemblance to a human ■became even more marked, for, in the well-chosen words of tho scientist, lie remained within the bottle, “making signs fairly to bo described as anticipatory.” Tho wrasse was nest introduced to a tuning fork in a bottle at tho other end of the tank in tho hope that ho would bo able to distinguish the right sound for the dining room. Unfortunately, this seems to have been .too much for him. After a number of visits to !the wrong bottle the poor wrasse gave it up in despair, and for about a fortnight refused all food. Plaice, cod, and coal-fish were soon taught to associate tho appearance of light in one part of a tank with tho, food supply, but tho behaviour of tho plaice showed him to bo a very suspicious creaturdx When the light appeared tho plaice made no movement whatever for one minute. Then ho approached tho food box in a zig-zag fashion. Ho finally entered tho box, remained quite still for another minute, then seized the food and instantly backed away with it at full speed to tho remotest corner of tho tank.