Tuckerman.] 
470 
lFeb.19, 
Professor Putnam spoke of several blind fislies which he had 
kept alive in Cambridge for a long time several years ago. He 
suggested the desirability of studying the embryology of the blind 
fishes. 
The Secretary regarded natural selection as amply sufficient to 
account for peculiarities of eyeless animals in caverns. He con- 
sidered that the loss of eyes in these animals resulted from disuse 
of these organs in genera from which blind genera were derived 
by natural selection. 
Professor W. O. Crosby then described a large bowlder from 
Madison, New Hampshire. Remarks on this communication were 
made by Professor F. W. Putnam and Mr. Frank Leverett. 
The following paper was read at the meeting on December 18, 
1889. 
ON THE GUSTATORY ORGANS OF THE MAMMALIA. 
BY FREDERICK TUCKERMAN. 
Before taking up for consideration the gustatory organs of 
mammalia, it may perhaps be as well to review very briefly what 
is known respecting the homologous organs of fishes, batrachians, 
and reptiles. 
In 1851, Franz von Leydig discovered in the external skin of 
fresh-water fishes peculiar goblet-shaped bodies, which he was dis- 
posed to regard as organs of a tactile nature. In 1863, Franz Eil- 
hard Schulze redescribed the goblet-shaped bodies of fishes, and 
considered them organs of taste. He found them in greatest num- 
ber where the fibres of the glosso- pharyngeal nerve are most thickly 
distributed, i. e ., in the mucous membrane of the palate, upon the 
gums and tongue rudiment, on the inner side of the gill arches? 
and upon the lips. In structure he found them to agree, in most 
respects, with the end-discs of the frog. The goblets he described 
as composed of two kinds of cells, viz., Sinneszellen and Stutzzellen , 
or sensory and supporting cells ; the former having a peripheral 
and central process. In 1867 Schulze observed that the peripheral 
extremity of the taste-cell bears a fine hair-like process, as in 
mammals. 
In 1870, he discovered in the mouth of a larval amphibian 
( Pelobates fuscus) bodies resembling in structure the goblet-shaped 
organs of fishes, which he considered taste-organs. In 1872, 
