38 Transactions Tennessee Academy of Science. 



does not possess any of the sense organs we possess, so far as we 

 know, it is interesting to know in what way stentor can tell the 

 nature of the particle that strikes its disk. Can stentor "taste" 

 the particles or "feel" them? 



In popular usage the word taste includes a number of qualities 

 which properly do not belong to it. We say commonly, that we 

 taste our food, but in a strict sense there is very little truth in the 

 statement. We taste sugar, a few salts, a few "bitter" substances, 

 and a few "sour" substances. We smell a large number of sub- 

 stances which are practically always associated with our food, but 

 which themselves exist only in small quantities. We smell the 

 essential oils in many fruits, the meat extractives, peptones, etc., 

 , but all these are present in very small quantity in the food we eat, 

 and their actual food value is negligible. Most of the proteins 

 (the plant and animal albumins, for example), the starches 

 (whether soluble or insoluble), have no taste in the pure form, 

 and these make up the bulk of our food. It is well known that 

 the cooked white of a hen's egg is not an attractive tasting sub- 

 stance, nor is it really disagreeable; it is merely tasteless. If we 

 had never seen or tasted coagulated egg" albumin, and should come 

 upon a mass of it in a place where we would not expect to find 

 food, such as inside of a rock, we would most certainly reject it 

 if tested by taking it into the mouth and chewing it. The rea- 

 son that we eat it, is that we have learned to eat it, because we 

 have observed that it is non-toxic and that it sustains life. Now 

 this is also the case with the other proteins and the starches. We 

 do not taste these substances themselves, but only the volatile oils 

 which are associated with them. If we ate only what we taste and 

 smell in our ordinary food, we would starve to death or die of 

 acute gastritis. The point is that a number of other factors are 

 concerned besides taste and smell in food selection. 



I have called attention to these facts merely to show that there 

 is good ground for discussing the l^iasis u])i)n wliicli scloctii)n in 

 food is made. 



In order to contribute to the solution of the question: Does 

 stentor learn what is food by tasting and smelling it, or by feel- 

 ing f)f it? I carried out a number of ex])eriments (M1 this ])oint 

 whicli 1 shall describe briclh'. 



