BRANCHIAL SENSE ORGANS IN ICHTHYOPSIDA. 131 
gill-cleft in the hypophysis, but he has declined to ascribe a 
sensory function to that structure. 
Froriep! also, in discussing the writer’s views as to the nature 
of the Vertebrate auditory organ, has suggested that the ear 
is really a modified gill-cleft. But, as I shall presently show, 
this suggestion cannot be accepted, or even be held with any 
amount of reserve, for it is based on erroneous ideas of the 
primitive nature of the dorsal roots of cranial nerves. 
If the writer’s discoveries stood alone, he would conceive it 
as highly probable, if not certain, that the nose is really a 
branchial sense organ. But this view of its nature is confirmed 
in a most striking manner, and rendered as certain as anything 
can possibly be by the researches of Blaue.? 
These researches have been carried out on a considerable 
series of fish and Amphibians, and have led to the conclusion 
that in the lowest form of adult nose met with, viz. the nose 
of some fishes and Amphibians, Belone, the herring, and 
Proteus, the structure of the nasal membrane is essentially 
made up of a series of “smell buds” (Riechknospen) and 
between these an indifferent stratified epithelium. These 
smell buds are identical in structure with the so-called taste 
buds of the papilla foliata of the tongue, say of a rabbit, and 
are also identical with the structures in the skin of fishes, which 
are here called branchial sense organs, and which are usually 
known as sense organs of the lateral line. 
In the common Triton those structures described by Blaue 
are readily found in transverse sections passing through the 
nasal cavities. One such section is figured in outline in fig. 48, 
and a part of the section, showing two sense bulbs of the nose or 
smell buds, is figured under high magnifying power in fig. 49. 
In Triton I have fully convinced myself by actual investiga- 
tion that Blaue’s results are true and accurate. And I have also 
somewhat examined the state of things in a few fishes. There 
 Froriep, “Ueber Anlagen von Sinnesorgane am Facialis,” ‘ Archiv fiir 
Anat. und Physiol.,’ 1885. 
* Blaue, “‘ Ueber Bau der Nasenschleimhaut bei Fischen und Amphibien.” 
‘ Archiv fiir Anat. und Physiol.,’ 1884. 
