Structural Peculiarities and Behavior 65 



deviations from the usual structure of the mammalian ear 

 which had been described by Rawitz. The latter distinctly 

 says that although the organ of Corti is present in all of the 

 whirls of the cochlea, the auditory cells in it are noticeably 

 degenerate. Kishi does not agree with Panse's statement 

 (21 p. 476) that the auditory organ of the dancer differs in 

 no important respects from that of the common mouse, for 

 he found that in certain regions the hair cells of the organ 

 of Corti were fewer and smaller in the dancer. He therefore 

 concludes that the auditory organ is not entirely normal, 

 but at the same time he emphasizes the serious discrepancy 

 between his results and those of Rawitz. In not one of the 

 ears of the twelve dancers which he studied did Kishi find 

 the direct communication between the utriculus and the scala 

 tympani which Rawitz described, and such differences as 

 appeared in the organ of Corti were in the nature of slight 

 deviations rather than marked degenerations. 



In the outer wall of the ductus cochlearis of the dancer 

 the stria vasculosa is almost or totally lacking, while in the 

 gray mouse it is prominent. This condition of the stria 

 vasculosa Kishi was the first to notice in the dancer; Alex- 

 ander and Kreidl had- previously described a similar condi- 

 tion in an albino cat. If, as has been supposed by some 

 physiologists, the stria vasculosa is really the source of the 

 endolymph, this state of affairs must have a marked influence 

 on the functions of the auditory apparatus and the static ap- 

 paratus, for pressure differences between the endolymph 

 and the perilymph spaces must be present. And, as Kishi 

 points out, should such pressure differences be proved to 

 exist, the functional disturbance in the organ of hearing 

 which the lack of responses to sounds seems to indicate might 

 better be ascribed to them than to the streaming of the endo- 

 lymph from the canals into the cochlea as assumed by Rawitz 



