362 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



6. The relation of the retia mirabilia to the nervous system has been described. 

 The thoracic rete is innervated both from the somatic (spinal) and from the sympathetic 

 systems. The basicranial rete is innervated from the trigeminal nerve. 



7. The possible function of the retia mirabilia has been discussed. It has been 

 suggested that they act as a kind of accessory lung : the fat absorbs oxygen from the 

 blood during progression at the surface, the oxygen returning into the circulation during 

 submergence. 



The work on which this paper is based was carried out at the Marine Biological 

 Station of the Discovery Investigations, South Georgia, during the southern summer 

 1929-30. 



I wish to thank Sir Sidney Harmer, Dr J. F. G. Wheeler, Professor J. Barcroft, 

 Professor A. V. Hill and Dr C. G. Douglas for valuable suggestions, and for the interest 

 they have shown in the subject. 



LIST OF LITERATURE 



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 Boycott, A. E., Damant, G. C. C. and Haldane, J. S., 1908. The Prevention of Compressed Air Illness. 



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P-37 1 - 

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 Report of a Committee appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to consider and report upon the 



conditions of Deep-Water Diving. August, 1907. 

 Racovitza, E. G., 1903. Resultats d'un Voyage du S.Y. Belgica en 1897-8-9. Zoologie, Cetaces, pp. 17-19. 

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and Balaenoptera. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Series B, 211, pp. 209-272. 

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Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, New Series, I, part vi, pp. 388-502, 14 pis. 

 Scoresby, W., 1820. The Arctic Regions, i, p. 468. Edinburgh. 

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Physiol., vm, part iv, pp. 379-402. 

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Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xxvi, part i, pp. 197-251, 4 pis. 

 Wilson, S., 1879. The Rete Mirabile of the Narwhal. lourn. Anat. and Physiol., vol. xiv, pp. 377-98. 



