Art. VI.] Herrick, Taste in Fishes. 43 



modality which they serve, rather than to contribute to the 

 chemical physiology of taste in general. 



The chief obstacle to experiments of this sort, and one 

 which many observers seem to have made no serious efforts to 

 overcome, is the natural timidity or shyness of wild creaturjes 

 when kept in the confined and unnatural quarters necessary for 

 close observation. The role played by fear in animal behavior 

 has been vividly brought to our notice by Whitman ('99), and, 

 like this observer, I find that young animals which have beeii 

 reared in captivity are much more approachable and tractable 

 under experimental conditions than adults which have been 

 reared in their natural freedom. In fact, with several .species I 

 quite failed to get the adults to take food at all in captivity, 

 though they were under observation for long periods. 



SECTION I. REVIEW OF LITERATUKK. 



Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the physiology 

 of taste in fishes and this literature is very scanty. On the 

 other hand, the anatomical investigation of these sense organs 

 has been extensively followed for nearly a century, though often 

 in a blind and profitless way. The history of opinion upon the 

 significance of these sense organs has been quite fully given by 

 Merkel ('80) in his great monograph published in 1880, and the 

 earlier phases of this history need not be again reviewed further 

 than to mention a few salient features. 



In 1827 Weber observed the taste buds on the peculiar 

 palatal organ of the carp and correctly interpreted their function. 

 He also figured the brain of the carp, illustrating the enormous 

 vagal lobes from which these taste buds receive their innerva- 

 tion. Leydig discovered in 185 i the terminal buds of the outer 

 skin of fishes and gave a detailed account of their structure 

 which subsequent research has shown to be in some respects la- 

 accurate. In 1863 F. E. Schulze gave a more accurate das- 

 scription of the "becherformigen Organe" of fishes, in which he 

 distinguished the specific sensory cells from the supporting 

 cells. He also correctly inferred their function to be similar to 



