Alt. VI.] Herrick, Taste in Fishes. yy 



were neglected, even though the barblet and filamentous fins 

 dragged over them repeatedly. 



I next took small clam shells that had been lying long in 

 the tanks containing the fish and were thoroughly cleaned of 

 fleshy matter and which the fishes had not paid any attention 

 to for days. These I dried and warmed and then filled with 

 melted gelatin which had been previously softened up in cold 

 water. Upon cooling there results a mass, colorless, tasteless, 

 and odorless, which feels almost exactly like the flesh of a clam, 

 which had often been fed to the fishes in this way. Upon 

 dropping these shells into the water, the fishes eagerly snap 

 them up, feel of them with the lips or barblet, and then bite in- 

 to the gelatin. They immediately reject the gelatin and they 

 never repeat the process. Even if they draw the fins or barb- 

 lets repeatedly over the shells and the contained gelatin, they 

 never again pay any attention to them. 



I also repeated with the hake the experiments which I had 

 previously carried out upon the cat fish, using a fine pointed 

 pipette and sapid solutions. The fishes were in all cases first 

 tested with sea water taken from the tank in which they were 

 swimming. On one occasion (the first test made) a jet of water 

 directed against the filamentous dorsal was followed by the 

 characteristic backward movement of the fish, so that he finally 

 received the jet in the face. He turned and tried to take the 

 point of the pipette in his mouth — a purely tactile reflex ap- 

 parently. This response I never got again with this or any 

 other fish, though occasionally the fish would stop, hesitate 

 a moment, and then swim on, paying no further attention to 

 the stimulus. If the jet of water is directed against the pelvic 

 fin while it is extended and searching the bottom for food, the 

 fin is usually quickly withdrawn and pressed against the side of 

 the body. 



The pipette was then filled with the freshly prepared and 

 strained juice of the mussel {Medeola), and this was directed 

 against the fish in the same way. The fishes responded in- 

 stantly just as when stimulated by meat, whether the jet was 

 directed against the filamentous dorsal, or the dorsal fin at any 



