With respect to taste, I have very little to say 

 in this place, having already described the organs 

 chiefly instrumental to this function, when speak- 

 ing of those by which food is received and trans- 

 mitted to the stomach. Whatever we may think 

 of the three sensations already spoken of, taste 

 is certainly, not only in the lower, but in all 

 tribes of animals, merely a more delicate kind 

 of touch; and is situated for the most part, not 

 exclusively in the tongue, palate or any other 

 individual organ, but in the whole interior of 

 the mouth. 



Although, therefore, in many animals, as the 

 snail, cuttle and fishes in general, as well as in some 

 individuals of the superior classes, the tongue is 

 hard and cartilaginous, and apparently very little 

 adapted to this function : nay, although it is, as 

 in the flying-fish and gar-pike, altogether wanting, 

 we have no reason to believe that they are desti- 

 tute of taste ; and the same thing may be said of 

 the numerous animals in which the tongue is co- 

 vered, more or less perfectly with prickles, or 

 even with feathers, like the toucan, or scales like 

 one kind of bat, which must in a great measure 

 obviate the contact with it of sapid substances. 

 The immediate instrument of taste seems to be 

 certain pointed projections, called papillae, with 

 which the whole membrane lining the mouth is 

 more or less abundantly furnished ; and that or- 

 gan will be of course in all animals the principal 

 seat of this function, on which these papillae are 

 most copious. In the greater number of animals 



