326 JAMES EDWARD ACKERT 



with the observations of a number of investigators, including 

 Boeke, who described motor end-plates on muscles in the tongue of 

 the bat. 



At the point where the nerve fibers enter the enlarged motor 

 end-plate there is a slight elevation of the surface of the muscle 

 (fig. 12, el). The position of end-plates on muscle fibers has been 

 in doubt for some time. In the preparations used in this study 

 they appear to be beneath the sarcolenmia (fig. 11, so). This 

 shows especially well in cross sections of muscle fibers in the tongue 

 (fig. 12, so). Most investigators are now in accord in regarding 

 this structure as under the sarcolemma. 



In weakly stained preparations the branched endings can be 

 seen to lie in more or less irregularly shaped matrices. The latter 

 are of two kinds : (1) A. weakly stained area containing numerous 

 deeply colored granules of various sizes; (2) A somewhat smaller 

 area without granules. 



In shape, the former are irregularly circular or even triangular. 

 The granules, which vary greatl}^ in size, stain almost if not quite 

 as deeply as the nerve fibrils themselves (fig. 11, mag). To 

 structures corresponding to these Kiihne ('87) gave the name 

 soles ('Sohlen'). The smaller areas or soles, which appear to be 

 free from granules in this stain, are oval or pear-shaped, the axis 

 cylinders always entering the narrowed end. Huber and De- 

 Witt ('97), Dogiel ('90) and Retzius ('92) stated that the sole 

 does not stain in methylene blue preparations, whether examined 

 at once or fixed in aimnonium molybdate and studied in sections. 

 The material, from which the present observations were made, 

 was prepared according to the latter method. The irregularly 

 shaped matrix in which the axis cylinder terminates is typically 

 granular, but the nuclei seen by Huber and others in such prepa- 

 rations counter stained with carmalum or picro-carmine do not 

 stain in methylene blue. In each of the two matrices or soles 

 described above, the end-arborizations are nearly similar. The 

 fact that Huber and the other observers mentioned failed to see 

 soles whose granules stained in methylene blue preparations, may 

 have been due to the inconsistency of the stain. This possibility, 

 together with the fact that nerve terminations on motor plates 



