THE FEELERS OF THE BARBED MULLET 



and can only do its work when brought into imme- 

 diate contact with substances either themselves liquid 

 or dissolved in a liquid. Taste, therefore, is chiefly the 

 business of the mouth. 



In the land world, taste is a closed sense, whereas 

 smell is an open sense. They are different in two re- 

 spects, first as regards the condition of the substances 

 which affect them, gaseous on the one hand and liquid 

 on the other, and secondly, by the nature of the im- 

 pression conveyed, which is from a distance in the first 

 instance, and limited in the second. We are surrounded 

 by odours, varying in nature and intensity, brought to 

 us by the air in which we live; but to taste, to perceive 

 savours, the conditions of life on land compel us to 

 feel sensation only in the mouth, on the tongue, by 

 direct contact with the object. Taste works only inside 

 the organism. We smell things at a distance, and taste 

 within ourselves. 



The conditions of aquatic life are different; in it 

 creatures are surrounded, not by air, but by water. The 

 substances which cause the impression cannot reach 

 them except in a dissolved state or as liquids; they 

 cannot be gaseous. The sensation they experience is 

 the equivalent of our taste. But, in the world of waters, 

 it loses its limited, internal character and becomes ex- 

 ternal, like our sense of smell. The fish need not re- 

 ceive substances that taste in its mouth, on its tongue. 

 They are disseminated in the surrounding water as 

 odours are in the air round us. Taste, in the fish, is 

 from an external, not an internal, source. It is perceived 

 as the sense of smell is in us. 



The double sensitiveness of land animals, taste and 

 smell, is united in aquatic animals. Theirs is a sense of 

 taste which behaves like a sense of smell. The creature 

 tastes at a distance. The taste-buds, scattered about its 

 whiskers, lips, and cheeks, placed in contact with the 

 surrounding liquid and the taste-evoking elements it 

 contains, receive from outside the materials which pro- 

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