THE ORGAN OF TASTE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2125, 8 May 1920, Page 4

THE ORGAN OF TASTE.

Many experiments have been nuuld in order to find out what and where the organ of taste is in the lower creation, but it is easier to say where it is not. Crayfish and worms seem to have very decided preferences in the matter of food, though no special taste organ has yet been, found. Lobsters like decaying food. The crab is more dainty in its diet.

Snails and slugs show a decided preference for certain kinds of food, as garden-lovers know to their cost, peas and cabbages, dahlias and sunflowers are great favourites, but they will npt touch the white mustard. Some prefer animal food, especially if rather high. Spiders have only a slight sense of taste; Hies soaked in paraffin seem quite palatable to them, though one species, the Diadema. is somewhat more particular, and refuses to touch alcohol in any form whatever. The antennae of insects do not appear to contain any organ of taste, for wasps and' ants quite readily took into their mouths poisonous and unpleasant load, e\en swallowing enough to make themselves ill, while some bees and cockroaches fell a prey to the temptation of alum, Epsom salts, and other nauseous food plaeed in their wn\. These substances were not. however, swallowed, but were soon spot our, the creatures sputtering angrily, as if disgusted with the taste.

The prohiscis of the fly and the longues of bees and nuts are furnished with numerous delicate hairs set in minute pits; these are, perhaps, connected with the organ of taste; but, though the exact locality of this sense in insects is uncertain, we know that groups of cells in the tongues of animals, called taste-bulbs, form in part the ends of the organ of taste. Those vary in number, increasing in the higher animals. They are very close and exceedingly numerous in man, while (ho longue of even the cow has some 35,000 taste-bulbs. It would he interesting to know whether each special taste excites •i special group of nerves, and that only—thus corresponding to the auditory nerves. These taste-bulbs were discovered in 1867. Each one consists of two kinds of cells, one set forming an outer protective covering, through an opening in which project from five to ten of the true taste-cells.

Though important, they arc not apparently an essential pall of the organ, for birds and reptiles hate hone; buf neither have they a keen sense of taste—except, perhaps, the parrot. A hoa-constrictor that was nearly blind was once found to be contentedly swallowing a blanket for dinner, instead ol a rabbit, which was also within reach, and it was 'only with great difficulty that it was forced to disgorge lids singular article of food. A snake’s tongue is, '.'•crefore, not an organ of taste; nor is it, as many think, a sting. It is more probably a delicate organ oc touch.