FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN 73 



already went a good way in the same direction, showing, 

 for example, that locomotion is a well-developed function 

 of the medulla oblongata. But Schrader, by great care 

 in the operation, and by keeping the frogs a long time alive, 

 found that at least in some of them the spinal cord would 

 produce movements of locomotion when the frog was 

 smartly roused by a poke, and that SAvimming and croaking 

 could sometimes be performed when nothing above the 

 medulla oblongata remained.* Schrader's hemisphereless 

 frogs moved spontaneously, ate flies, buried themselves 

 in the ground, and in short did many things which before 

 his observations were suj^posed to be impossible unless the 

 hemispheres remained. Steinerf and Yulpian have re- 

 marked an even greater vivacity in fishes deprived of their 

 hemispheres. Vulpian says of his brainless carps| that 

 three days after the ojjeration one of them darted at food 

 and at a knot tied on the end of a string, holding the latter so 

 tight between his jaws that his head was drawn out of 

 water. Later, " they see morsels of white of egg ; the 

 moment these sink through the water in front of them, 

 they follow and seize them, sometimes after they are on the 

 bottom, sometimes before they have reached it. In captur- 

 ing and swallowing this food they execute just the same 

 movements as the intact carps which are in the same aqua- 

 rium. The only difference is that they seem to see them at 

 less distance, seek them with less imjjetuosity and less per- 

 severance in all the points of the bottom of the aquarium, 

 but they struggle (so to speak) sometimes with the sound 

 carps to grasp the morsels. It is certain that the}' do not 

 confound these bits of white of egg with other white bodies, 

 small pebbles for example, which are at the bottom of the 

 water. The same carp which, three days after operation, 

 seized the knot on a piece of string, no longer snaps at it 

 now, but if one brings it near her, she draws away from it 

 by swimming backwards before it comes into contact with 



* Loc. cit. pp. 80, 82-3. Sclirader also found a biting-reQex developed 

 when the medulla oblougata is cut through ju.st behind the cerebellum, 

 f Berlin Akad. Sitzungsberichte for 1886. 

 X Comptes Rendus, vol. 102, p. 90. 



