CHAMELEON'S TONGUE. 



" ' Nerve tufts ' are not terminal organs ~but networks. The 

 nerve tuft consists of a complex network of fibres, the meshes 

 of which are very small. Connected with the fine nerve fibres 

 are numerous masses of bioplasm or nuclei. The plexus or 

 network constituting the nerve tuft is not terminal, nor does 

 it result from the branching of a single fibre, as has been repre- 

 sented. Many fibres enter into its formation ; and from various 

 parts of it long, fine fibres pass off to be distributed upon the 

 surface of the sarcolemma. It seems most probable that at the 

 situation of these compressed coils (nerve tufts) the contraction 

 of the muscular fibre would commence, and that from the nerve 

 current traversing several fibres collected over a comparatively 

 small portion of muscle, the contraction at these spots would be 

 sudden and violent, while it is probable that the contractions- 

 commencing at these points would extend, as it were, from them 

 along the fibre in opposite directions. I consider these nerve 

 tufts, therefore, simply as collections of nerve fibres, differing 

 only from the ordinary arrangement before described, some- 

 what in the same manner as the compressed nerve network in a 

 highly sensitive papilla differs from the lax expanded nerve- 

 network in the almost insensitive connective tissue" ("Biopl.," 

 p. 268). 



These organs were found numerous in the tongue of the 

 chameleon, and in corroboration of the supposed use of them, 

 I may notice the function of that organ : 



" The chameleon is another curious example of a reptile 

 obliged to employ its tongue in securing insect prey. The 

 chameleon is arboreal in its habits ; its feet, cleft as it were 

 into two portions, firmly grasp the boughs upon which it climbs ; 

 while its well-known power of changing the colour of its skin, 

 so as to imitate that of the branches around it, efficiently con- 

 ceals it from observation. The tongue of this creature, when 

 extended, is as long as its whole body, and is terminated by a 

 club-shaped [extremity smeared over with a viscid secretion ; 

 when an insect comes within a distance of five or six inches 

 from the chameleon, the end of this tongue is first slowly pro- 

 truded to the distance of about an inch, and then, with the 

 rapidity of lightning, launched out with unerring aim : the fly x 



