A STUDY OF THE VAGAL LOBES AND FUNICULAR 

 NUCLEI OF THE BRAIN OF THE CODFISH. 



By C. JUDSON HERRICK. 



{Studies from the Neurological Laboratory of Denison Uni'versity, No. XX.) 

 With Eight Figures. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The peripheral and central organs of taste have received more 

 or less careful study in three distinct groups of teleostean fishes 

 in which taste buds are known to occur plentifully in the outer skin; 

 viz. : the cyprinoids (carp, etc.), the siluroids (Ameiurus and other 

 catfishes) and the gadoids (cod, tom-cod, hake). The structure 

 of the cutaneous taste buds of the carp was described by 

 Leydig in 1851 and more accurately in 1863 and 1870 by 

 F. E. ScHULZE, who correctly inferred their function. Their 

 gustatory function was subsequently demonstrated physiologically 

 in Ameiurus and various gadoids (Herrick '04), and it was shown 

 that either tactile or gustatory stimuli alone may be correctly 

 localized in the outer skin, though ordinarily both senses cooperate 

 in the locating of the food. The same reaction may follow either 

 a tactile or a gustatory stimulation of the outer skin or the simul- 

 taneous stimulation of both kinds of sense organs in the same 

 cutaneous area. 



The distribution of the nerves of touch in the skin of fishes is 

 very accurately known and the general arrangement of these nerves 

 is nearly constant throughout the phylum. The innervation of 

 the cutaneous taste buds has also been studied in the three types 

 here considered — exhaustively in Ameiurus (Herrick '01) and 

 less completely in Gadus (Herrick 'go) and Carassius (Herrick 

 '04, p. 249). The nerves for the cutaneous taste buds spring from 

 the communis root of the facial nerve, without exception in Ameiu- 

 rus and with but small exception in Gadus. The same facial root 

 supplies also taste buds in the anterior part of the mouth. 



