7^c^ 



THE STRUCTURE AND MORPHOLOGY OF THE 

 OBLONGATA IN FISHES. 



By B. F. Kingsbury. 



With Plates I- V. 



The writer was engaged in the study of the Amphibian 

 brain at the time of the appearance of the monograph by O. 

 S. Strong on the cranial nerves of Amphibia. Especially was 

 it then attempted to determine in Nectiirus the ental origin of 

 the nerves of the oblongata, and many results attained by 

 Strong had been independently gained by me, largely under 

 the stimulus of his preliminary papers, but the broad view and 

 general application which made Strong's paper so valuable a 

 contribution were in a degree wanting in my own. 



In Strong's comparison of the cranial nerves of Amphibia 

 with those of "fishes " in the effort to find in the latter the rep- 

 resentatives of the components already recognized by him, it 

 was difficult to harmonize the accounts by various writers of 

 the origin of certain of the nerves in the different forms. When, 

 therefore, opportunity was afforded me during the past year of 

 studying the brains of several ganoids and teleosts, especially 

 Amia and Amhirus, one of the objects was to confirm the hom- 

 ologies suggested by Strong, to find in these forms the rep- 

 resentatives of the nerve components previously recognized in 

 Amphibia, and to identify in these so variously modified brains 

 the corresponding regions, and determine their morphologic 

 and structural relations. 



It is the ultimate purpose, as just suggested, to work out 

 somewhat carefully by means of the Weigert and Golgi meth- 

 ods the structure and relations of the regions of this part of 

 the brain for certain ganoids and teleosts, in order to gain a 

 more exact knowledge of the connections of the various nidi 

 with each other and with the rest of the brain and myel. This 



