538 TASTE. 



When the tongue or interior of the mouth or throat is rather 

 dry, we experience thirst. But, if the dryness is extreme, the 

 nerves may not feel the want of fluid, being apparently disquali- 

 fied for their office ; and merely the roughness of the parts may 

 be complained of. The most intense thirst is felt when the ex- 

 terior of the tongue and interior of the mouth and throat are 

 covered with a sticky substance: viscid secretion or jelly will 

 give intense thirst, there being insufficient fluidity and yet no 

 disqualifying aridity. 



All animals having a mouth and stomach have probably taste. To disprove 

 a common opinion that birds have but little taste, Gall mentions that Blumen- 

 bach finds the organ much larger proportionally in the duck than in the goose ; 

 that the palate of many are supplied with very strong and large nervous papillae ; 

 that many birds bruise insects and grains; and many, if different kinds of food 

 are given them, select the most agreeable ; that, if whole ants are given to fresh 

 caught nightingales, the birds usually reject them, but if they are bruised they are 

 swallowed with avidity ; that those birds which swallow their food whole dis- 

 tinguish different berries and grains with their beak, so that, although all may be 

 taken into the mouth indifferently, the unsuitable are presently rejected ; that 

 swans will crush and greedily swallow rats and frogs, but instantly refuse to 

 swallow toads ; and that swallows, and all birds that feed on insects, devour bees 

 and large flies, but reject various insects : he reproves M. Dum^ril for supposing, 

 before the Institute of France, that Nature has supplied fishes with a tongue 

 possessed of a fine membrane, and not given it the sense of taste. Different 

 animals are differently affected by sapid substances : what is disgusting to some 

 is delightful to others ; what would make us sick is often a dainty to certain 

 brutes. Gall refutes the absurd opinion of Professor Akerman, that the per- 

 fection of man's intellect arises from the perfection of his senses and that man 

 has a finer taste than brutes, by stating that the papillae of the tongue, pharynx, 

 palate, &c. are proportionally larger and more numerous in brutes ; that, to 

 increase the surface of taste, many brutes have the membrane of their palate 

 furrowed and sprinkled with a multitude of nervous papillae; and that the 

 eating apparatus is in most of them larger than in man ; that the dog, bear, and 

 monkey have their tongue covered with as fine a membrane as that of man ; and 

 that the enjoyment of taste appears the greatest and most enduring of all in 

 many, as they are eating and ruminating almost constantly while awake. 

 !. c. 4to. vol. 1. p. 151. sqq. 



