THE FEELERS OF THE BARBED MULLET 



touching. When it searches with them in the sand, 

 or underneath the pebbles, it perceives taste rather 

 than tactile impressions; it acts like a dog ferreting 

 about, and is governed by smell. It follows a scent. 

 It has its own field of taste, and other fishes have 

 it also. 



The case of the mullet is not isolated. Its feelers are 

 whiskers of a peculiar kind, but they are still whiskers. 



Fig. 47. — Simplified and enlarged section of two taste-buds in the Bearded 

 Mullet showing the long, closely-packed cells ending in tiny super- 

 ficial filaments. These two buds, like those in the higher verte- 

 brates, are encased in a thick skin composed of polyhedral cells. 

 Magnified 250 times. 



Many other fishes have them on their lips, round their 

 mouths, and those too have taste-buds in their super- 

 ficial layers. Those fishes, still more numerous, which 

 have not these appendages, are not, however, without 

 sensitive organs, for they have them in the walls of the 

 lips, the cheeks, the forehead, and the nasal cavity. 

 I have used the mullet as an example and amodel be- 

 cause of the activity of its mobile feelers, which accent- 

 uates the effect produced by their use as a sense organ, 

 but this phenomenon, this sensitivity, this perception of 



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