Electric Fishes

Abstract

WHILE I was fishing for cod the other day off Walmer, I took up in my hand a small whiting pout that was flopping about in the bottom of the boat, when I received what appeared to me a slight though distinct electric shock in the palm of my hand, which made me exclaim at once, “That fish has given me an electric shock.” On asking the fisherman (seventy years of age) if he had known of such a thing occurring before, he said that he had “heard tell of it,” and on inquiring further I found that he was referring to whiting pout and not to any other fish. He had never, however, noticed anything of the kind himself.