138 American Fisheries Society 



food, but moves away as though irritated. On the other 

 hand if distilled water only is used the fish is not affected. 

 Quinine does not disturb the fish when applied to mid- 

 trunk or tail, but when applied to the mouth it has the 

 same effect as salt, sour or alkaline. The fish thus acts 

 negatively to three of the four classes of substances 

 (salt, sour, bitter) that affect our organs of taste. To 

 the fourth of these substances it does not respond 

 (sweet). But sugar is not found normally in the fishes' 

 environment, and it is therefore not strange that they 

 do not respond to it. 



When the bullhead is touched on the body with a piece 

 of meat it responds positively by turning to seize it, al- 

 though it may not see it. There is then something in 

 the meat other than salt, sour or bitter that affects the 

 organs of taste of the fish. To this something the fish 

 responds positively, while salt, sour, bitter and alkaline 

 substances seem to irritate so that it responds negatively 

 to them. 



Parker (1912), was able to show that when the nerves 

 going to the taste buds in the skin of this fish were cut 

 it no longer responded to pieces of meat but was still 

 affected by salt and sour and alkaline liquids. He con- 

 cludes that there are two sorts of organs in the skin of 

 this fish— the taste buds affected by certain sapid sub- 

 stances in the meat and the free nerve endings affected 

 by salt, sour and alkaline substances. These two sets of 

 organs are supplied by different nerves. The fish re- 

 sponds positively to those things that affect the taste 

 buds, negatively to those that affect the free nerve end- 

 ings. Parker would call the sense that takes note of 

 salt, sour and bitter substances the common chemical 

 sense, that which takes note of the sapid substances of 

 meat through the taste buds he would call the sense of 

 taste. The distinction is not maintained in this paper. 

 Results similar to these of Parker were obtained by 

 Sheldon (1909), who worked on the salt-water dogfish 

 (Mustclus). 



