THE ORGAN AND SENSE OF TASTE IN FISHES. 
269 
The original reaction may be largely or wholly an unconscious or automatic response 
and the “memory” maybe an organic memory more closely allied to habit.) At 
the beginning of the tests with cotton the cat-fishes generally seized the cotton just 
as they did the meat. At the close of the first day’s experiments they had learned 
to ignore the cotton as a rule, and a half an hour after the close of this series of tests 
they still would pay small attention to the cotton; but by the day following, if 
tested first with meat, they would take the cotton for a few times or would react to 
it slightly during the first few tests, but would learn to let it alone sooner than on 
the first day. But toward the close of the experiments, after several weeks of 
practice, I rarely got any reaction at all with the cotton under any circumstances, 
even if the fishes had not been tested for several days. With the gadoids the number 
of experiments was much smaller and they were continued for a shorter time, but I 
never got so good evidence of memory of the discrimination. On successive da} r s the 
tests were much alike. The inability of the tomcod to remember to ignore a tactile 
contact which is not followed by satisfaction so long as the cat-fish remembers a 
similar discrimination I take to bean indication that the tactile element plays a much 
larger part in the reflex complex in the gadoids. The known distribution of the 
taste buds favors this view also, for while they are very abundant on the barblets and 
body of the cat-fish they are rather sparse on the free fins of the gadoids and the 
general cutaneous nerve supply on the fins of these fishes is greatly in excess of the 
communis nerve supply. 
I noticed also that all of the fishes that ate freely in captivity soon accustomed 
themselves to novel methods of feeding, and in the case of the cat-fishes, and the hake 
especially, as soon as I approached their tanks after the experiments had been in 
progress some time, the fishes would rise to the top of the tank and eagerly await the 
expected food. This restlessness became so great with the cat-fish that the experi- 
ments became increasingly more difficult, and, as before mentioned, there was evidence 
that vision and possibly smell assumed greater importance after this expectation 
of food had made its appearance. 
Denison University, December 15 , 1002. 
