CUTANEOUS NEEVE-TERMINATIONS IN MAMMALS. 575 



ments on the hairs, we have still to refer to the remarks which 

 we made at the commencement of this paper regarding the use 

 made by the Mole of its tail as a tactile organ. Unaware at the 

 time that Jobert had previously considered the tail as a special 

 tactile" organ in Eats and Shrews, we set about looking for the 

 evidence given by histological examination ; and then, as already 

 stated, we rediscovered for ourselves all the elements we have 

 described, in ignorance that Jobert' s ring and the forked termi- 

 nations had already been described, although the nerve-cells and 

 their continuations still remain as original observations. But in 

 the tails of Eats and Shrews we now know that there is nothing- 

 peculiar in the nerves of the hairs distinguishing them from 

 those on the other portions of the body ; and therefore any claims 

 of Jobert in this respect fall to the ground. With the Mole, 

 however, things are very different in two respects. In the first 

 place, the forked nerve-endings on the tail of the Mole are three 

 or four times as numerous as those found on the hairs of the 

 trunk, and twice as numerous as those found on the stout hairs 

 in the nose of the Horse, as will be seen on comparing fig. 3 with 

 fig. 7. In the second place, the hairs on the tail are several times 

 thicker and stouter than those on the trunk, so that the resist- 

 ance which they can apply to objects must react with greatly 

 exaggerated effect upon the organs of touch on the liair-follicle, 

 just as any one of us could guide himself in tlie dark better with 

 a stout stafl' the length of a peacock's feather than with the 

 feather itself. For these two reasons we consider the tail of the 

 Mole to be specially developed as a tactile organ ; and probably 

 the same may be said of the tail of the Hedgehog, for the same 

 reasons. Laying aside the few short feelers found near the 

 muzzle of the European Mole, but not represented (at all events 

 macroscopically) on others of the family, there is only one other 

 spot on the body of the Mole where the tactile apparatus on the 

 hairs is specially developed ; and that is on the back of his paws. 

 "We have already referred to the manner in which the Mole 

 passes his food into his mouth by holding it with the backs of 

 his digger paws, which are covered with short stout hairs some- 

 what similar to those on the tail. These hairs seem to serve two 

 purposes by their stoutness : they serve to increase the sense of 

 touch, even of so soft an object as an earthworm ; and they, no 

 doubt, by their bristly character, enable the animal to hold the 

 wriggling slippery prey securely while he conveys it to his mouth. 



