BRAIN OF SWORDFISH

Evening Star, Issue 22524, 17 December 1936, Page 8

BRAIN OF SWORDFISH

SIZE OF WALNUT IN 400 POUNDER It does not matter whether a triangular gang hook or a single hook is ■used on a swordfish—the catch cannot feel pain. This is the opinion of an expert’s studies on the visual and mental processes of fish. Once he dissected with a tomahawk and a sheathknife the head of a 4001 b swordfish. A lantern slide' depicting the result of this post mortem examination showed that tho 400-pounder had a brain the size of a walnut. He concluded that the mental processes of tho swordfish were non-existent. Pain was a mental process in the human being, and therefore ho believed that the swordfish was incapable of feeling pain. Tho suggestion that the fish could distinguish between the types of hooks used by deep-sea anglers was, in his opinion, absurd. Afteiy many ingenious experiments the majority of scientific investigators had concluded that all fish were totally colour blind, the expert remarked. This view, however, was contrary to tho opinion of trout anglers, who held that this specie of fish "had a decided preference for red, orange, green, brown, and blue. Anglers therefore spent much time in selecting a fly colour that they believed would best deceive the fish. “ I think there is no doubt a trout can tell a 1 Jock Scott ’ from a ‘Black Doctor,’ ” he added. Common belief that the term “ crocodile tears,” as applied to people, was derived from the partiality of the crocodile for sobbing was shattered, said tho expert. An _ observer, he said, had squeezed a mixture of salt and onion juice into the eyes of four species of crocodiles, but had failed to produce the tears, and thus tho experimenter concluded that the popular idea that amphibians shed tears was a myth. The functions of crocodiles’ tear glands was to lubricate their food, he added.