BRAIN OF SWORDFISH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 15

BRAIN OF SWORDFISH

SIZE OF WALNUT 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 menial processes of fish. Once he dissected with a tomahawk and a sheath knife the head of a 4001 b swordfish. A lantern slide depicting the result of this post-mortem examination showed that the 400-pounder had a brain the size of a walnut. He concluded that the mental processes of the swordfish were non-existent. Pain was a mental process in the human being, and, therefore, he believed that the swordfish was incapable of feeling pain. The suggestion that the fish could distinguish between the types of hooks used by deep-sea anglers was, in his opinion, absurd. After 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 the opinion of trout anglers, who held that this species 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 ‘ 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 the 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 the experimenter concluded that the popular idea that the amphibians shed tears was a myth. The functions of crocodiles’ tear glands was to lubricate their food, he added.