84 Bulletin of Laboratories of Denison University [voi. xii 



bottom. But if placed on the bottom they would seek shelter 

 under pebbles and remain unnoticed until they were stirred up 

 and sent floating off, when they would be seen and taken at 

 once. The free fin ray was observed to touch the worm when 

 concealed without evoking a response. A moment later the 

 worm was set in motion and taken at once. 



I got no evidence that the fishes smell or otherwise detect 

 the presence of food at a distance or concealed from sight and 

 touch. Meat enclosed between clam shells, which a torn cod 

 would have secured within a minute or two, remained unno- 

 ticed, though the outsides of the shells were repeatedly fingered 

 over by the free rays and similar bits of meat were taken at 

 once if in motion near the fish. 



The young sea robins eat crab meat well. I made a 

 strong extract of crab meat and filtered it. Now with a fine 

 pipette a jet of cleam sea water was directed against the free pec- 

 toral fin rays. There was no response, or if the jet was strong 

 the fin was folded against the body. The extract of crab ap- 

 plied in the same way with the pipette gave the same result. 

 Even when the jet is directed against the lips, the fish usually 

 pays no attention or is disturbed and swims away. This would 

 seem to indicate that the sense of taste is absent or very feeble 

 on all of the exposed parts of the body. Thus the absence of 

 special gustatory sense organs, of communis nerves and of gus- 

 tatory reactions from the free rays of the pectoral fins serve as 

 mutual controls. 



The king fish [Menticirrhus saxatilis). The fishes have a 

 short, thick mental barblet and they were studied to compare 

 their reactions with those of the siluroid and gadoid fishes. 

 Most of the types of experiment made previously on the latter 

 fishes were repeated on the king fish Without going into de- 

 tails, the experiments seemed to show in general that the king" 

 fish is not a pure visualizer, though vision is somewhat used in 

 finding food. This seems to be in the main a tactile reaction, 

 as most of the food taken was by contact and non-nutritrous 

 substances were generally taken if they felt like food. For in- 

 stance, colorless gelatin is taken at the first contact and repeat- 



