54 Bulletin of Laboratories of Denison University. [Voi xii 



to a stimulation of the skin of the body with quinine, though 

 the last named fish gave an immediate response when the solu- 

 tion touched the lips. He concludes, "In the fresh-water fishes, 

 according to my observations, the power of taste is completely 

 lacking in the outer skin; or, more precisely, in no part except 

 the head is there gustatory sensibility." 



For such of these forms as possess no terminal buds on the 

 skin of the body this is doubtless true; but for the other fishes, 

 including doubtless Sibinis and Cyprinus, it is certainly a mis- 

 take. In gadoid fishes I got a clear reaction against quinine 

 solution when it was applied to the free fin rays which are 

 known to be supplied with terminal buds, but not from other 

 parts of the skin. 



Among the elasmobranch fishes, Nagel found Scy Ilium cat- 

 ulus and 5. canicula to be sensitive to very dilute solutions of 

 vanilla all over the body and fins. Bitters were not perceived 

 thus, nor oil of rosemary, but they are very sensitive to creo- 

 sote. He controverts Schwalbe's argument that the terminal 

 buds of the outer skin of fishes probably have a gustatory func- 

 tion by reason of the similarity of their structure with that of 

 taste buds in the mouth, and concludes, "A real sense of taste, 

 such as man and many other animals have in the mouth, ap- 

 pears to be absent in the outer skin of all fishes and Amphibia." 



It will appear from the following pages that this conclusion 

 is erroneous. I will merely add here that if Nagel had worked 

 with sapid solutions with which his fishes were presumably 

 already familiar, instead of with substances like sugar and 

 vanilla, toward which no clearly established reflexes had been 

 established in the natural environment of the fishes, his con 

 elusions might have been different. 



SECTION 2. TERMINAL BUDS AND THIR INNERVATION. 



The terminal buds of the fishes tabulated above, and doubt- 

 less many others which might be mentioned, are of the same 

 type and presumably provided with similar innervation by com- 

 munis nerves, for cutaneous branches of the communis root of 

 the facial nerve are known to reach the areas provided with the 



