NO. 4 NERVOUS SYSTEM OF A CENTIPEDE — LORENZO 7 



at the moment of bursting its shell, the brain is composed of four double ganglia, 

 the centers of the corresponding number of segments, which are then becoming 

 aggregated together to form the single movable portion of the head in the 

 perfect animal ; so that the brain of the myriapod, and probably of all the higher 

 Articulata, is in reality, composed of at least four pairs of ganglia. 



This was a precocious observation, for Newport was seeing for the 

 first time in a geophilomorph the protocerebra, deutocerebra and trito- 

 cerebra of the brain and the subesophageal ganglion located in the 

 cephalic capsule. 



Saint Remy (1887), employing the microtechniques of Dietl 

 (1876), was the first to make an intensive investigation of the centi- 

 pede brain. Two geophilomorphs, A'', longicornis and 5". suhterraneus 

 (Leach), were studied in addition to other centipedes, various milli- 

 pedes, araneids, and insects. Illustrations made from sectioned mate- 

 rial appear in 14 plates containing 155 figures. His work is a notable 

 contribution to the field of comparative invertebrate neurology. Sev- 

 eral discrepancies, however, have been discovered in his work by 

 other investigators (Horberg, 1931 ; Fahlander, 1938), who, in dem- 

 onstrating inaccuracies regarding other species, have jeopardized an 

 appreciation of the exactness of his observation on the geophil brain. 

 In the light of some of the more recent studies, Saint Remy's treat- 

 ment of the brain of longicornis is brief ; some of his interpretations 

 are questionable. He described, for example, a small nerve emerging 

 inferiorly from the posterior part of the frontal lobe (see pi. 6, fig. 

 68) and called it the "nerf de Tomosvary." Whether he mistook this 

 nerve for one innervating the Organ of Tomosvary — which is lacking 

 in the Geophilomorpha — or whether he considered it a vestigial homo- 

 logue of the nerve to that organ in other centipedes, could not be de- 

 termined by the present author.^ 



The paper of Crabill (1951) is of interest in that it suggests a close 

 affinity of the species A^. longicornis, studied by both Newport and 

 Saint Remy, and the geophil selected for this study, Arenophilus bi- 

 puncticeps (Wood). While examining the four type specimens on 

 which Meinert (1886) based the new species Geophihts huronicus, 

 Crabill discovered that two of the centipedes are assignable to longi- 

 cornis, a geophil widely distributed throughout Europe, and the others 

 to the North American hipuncticeps. The four were considered con- 

 specific by Meinert. 



Although other workers have studied the chilopod nervous system 

 (Child, 1892; Adensamer, 1893; Duboscq, 1899; Haller, 1905; 



s It is now known that this nerve innervates the "cerebral gland" and has 

 neurosecretory significance (Gabe, 1952). 



