THE FEELERS OF THE BARBED MULLET 



duce the sensation ; they have not to wait until they are 

 brought within the mouth. Organs so situated in land 

 animals would have no faculty of taste; no such sensa- 

 tion would be produced in them. In animals living in 

 the water, on the other hand, they are situated where 

 they are most useful. They receive emanations from 

 outside, as the nasal cavities receive theirs. 



This mixed sense of fishes and aquatic creatures, 

 essentially gustatory, since it involves an impression 

 caused by liquids or substances in solution, but olfac- 

 tory in behaviour, since it gains its impressions directly 

 from outside, is very common in them. They are able 

 to appreciate, through taste, the varying qualities of the 

 environment in which they live, and to become aware 

 of the presence of prey or of enemies some distance 

 away. Animals excrete substances either through the 

 skin or in other ways. On land, many of them give 

 out odours by which they manifest their existence 

 and their situation. In the water, these odours are 

 savours which are received, incorporated and passed 

 on by the environment. They can be perceived at a 

 distance. 



When dealing with the land world, the word " flair " 

 is sometimes used to denote the quality which, by odour, 

 urges and directs towards a desired aim. This flair is 

 olfactory. By it a hunting dog finds its way to the 

 game. It seeks those places where the sensation 

 of smell is progressively stronger and stronger, and 

 so it finds its quarry. So, in aquatic animals, there is 

 a gustatory flair. Taste emanations, exuded by a body 

 in the water, gradually become disseminated and get 

 weaker as they get further away. The creature which 

 perceives them has only to behave like the dog, and 

 move gradually in the direction where the sensations are 

 more intense, and so reach the body from which the 

 exudation proceeds. The dog is guided by its nose; 

 our aquatic animal is guided by the lips, whiskers, snout, 

 nostrils, by all those parts of the body which are 

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