TONGUE OF PERAMELES NASUTA. 69 



The Tongue of Perameles nasuta, with some 

 Suggestions as to the Origin of Taste Bulbs. 



By 

 EdTrard B. Poulton, 91. A. 



With Plate I. 



I AM indebted to the kindness of Professor Moseley for the 

 opportunity of working upon the tongue of this little-known 

 animal. I had expected to meet with interesting details in 

 this investigation, but I hardly ventured to hope for characters 

 with so important a bearing on general development as, it 

 appears to me, are to be found in this organ, especially when 

 such suggestive structures are combined with so much highly 

 specialised peculiarity. 



The animal to which this organ belonged was caught in the 

 summer of 1874, and its capture is described in the " Notes 

 by a Naturalist on the ' Challenger,' " page 269. Professor 

 Moseley had hardened the back part of the tongue in chromic 

 acid, and since that time it had been kept in strong alcohol. 

 This treatment was so successful that the cells came out in my 

 sections fully as well as in recently hardened structures. The 

 following is a description of the obvious characters of the piece 

 of tongue when it came into my possession. The length was 

 18 millimeters, including the limits of the papillate surface 

 behind, but cut transversely across this surface in front. The 

 width was 12 mm. and the thickness 9 mm. There is a de- 

 scription of the whole tongue in vol. vi of the ' Memoirs of the 

 Wernerian Natural History Society/ by Dr. R. E. Grant (in 

 a paper dated January 26th, 1828, on the "Anatomy of Pera- 

 meles nasuta"). He states that the tongue is very long, 

 flat, narrow, and rather thin ; of equal breadth from the root 



