5© Bulletin of Laboratories of Denison University. [voi. xii 



and curious pastes and oils, which were seductive to fish ; in 

 Walton's day and long after this practice was followed and the 

 records tell us of its success. When I was a boy and the 

 Schuylkill River was swarming with the small white-bellied cat- 

 fish, than which no more delightful breakfast food ever came 

 out of the water, the only bait used to catch them was made of 

 Limburger cheese, mixed with a patch of cotton-batting to hold 

 it firm on the hook. No other lure had the same attraction for 

 them because, no doubt, of the decided odor of the cheese." 



The problems connected with the relative significance of 

 the several sense organs of the fishes have been treated both 

 anatomically and experimentally in the excellent paper of Bate- 

 son ('90). After anatomical remarks, based largely on his own 

 careful studies, on the eyes, olfactory organs and gustatory or- 

 gans, he recounts a series of admirable and well considered ex- 

 periments made to test the parts played by these organs in the 

 normal feeding of various kinds of fishes. 



These observations are grouped under two chief heads, 

 viz., "Senses of Fishes which Seek their Food by Scent," and 

 ^'The Senses of Fishes which Seek their Food by Sight." 

 Though the taste buds in the mouth and outer skin are de- 

 scribed and correctly interpreted in the anatomical part of the 

 paper, these organs are scarcely considered at all in the physio- 

 logical part, and this is really the greatest weakness of the 

 paper. Since my own observations in part follow so closely in 

 the foot-steps of Bateson (though completed in the main before 

 his paper was accessible to me), and since they are in general 

 confirmatory of his, it will be of interest to review portions of 

 his paper at this time. 



He gives the following list of fishes which he has observed 

 "to show consciousness of food which was unseen by them; as, 

 as will hereafter be shown, there is evidence that they habitually 

 seek it without the help of their eyes:" 



Protoptenis anttectens, mud fish. 



Scy Ilium caniada, rough dog fish. 



Scyllium catulus, nurse hound. 



Raja batiSy skate. 



