Art. VI.] Herrick, Taste in Fishes. 75 



to explore all manner of substances which may attract the 

 notice of the fish, whether edible or not. After these fishes 

 had become accustomed to being fed small bits of meat or clam 

 or mussel {Medeolci) in their tank, they immediately swim to- 

 ward any small unfamiliar body with the pelvic fins thrust for- 

 ward to touch it before the mouth reaches it. Sometimes the 

 tips of these fins close over it with a movement strongly sug- 

 gestive of grasping, though of course this they cannot do. 



Upon testing by contact with meat or other bait, the free 

 dorsal filament is found to be quite as sensitive to gustatory 

 stimuli as the filamentous ventrals. The reflex in this case is 

 very characteristic and constant — the fish upon touching a 

 savory morsel checks its forward movement and immediately 

 "backs water" so as to reverse the movement of the body un- 

 til the object is directly above the mouth, when it is taken at 

 once. This reflex usually (though not so invariably) follows a 

 contact of meat upon any part of the dorsal fin, as well as the 

 free filament. The reflex rarely fails when any one of the filamen- 

 tous fins is touched by freshly cut meat. After meat has been 

 in the water for fifteen minutes or more it seems to lose its sa- 

 vor and the fins may be repeatedly dragged over it without 

 calling forth a response, and the same is true of the barblet and 

 lips. 



I tested the filamentous fins with a wisp of cotton wool on 

 a fine wire, as I did the cat fishes. It was rarely noticed at all 

 by the pelvic fins, but at the first contact with the filamentous 

 dorsal the fish reacted just as he did to meat with which he had 

 been tested immediately before. Upon repetition the response 

 was soon discontinued. For a few tests the fish would pause, 

 and perhaps back up slowly so as to smell the suspicous object 

 or touch it with the barblet, but it was not taken into the 

 mouth. After from two to ten tests no further attention was 

 paid to the cotton, or the fish would pause a moment without 

 backing up. This experiment was many times repeated in the 

 course of the first day of its trial and daily thereafter for some 

 time. If three or four hours intervened between two series of 

 about twenty tests, the first one or two tests of the second se- 



