OPHTHALMIC NERVES OF GNATHOSTOME FISHES 71 



selected for each so-called composite nerve, and it certainly had 

 valid claim to priority over the one that he had himself earlier 

 employed, namely, truncus supraorbitalis. Furthermore, it was 

 at that time, and still is, my opinion that it has by no means 

 as yet been definitely established that the lateralis and com- 

 munis fibers found in the ophthalmicus superficialis do not be- 

 long definitely to the trigeminus, their centers of origin having 

 simply fused with, or become contiguous to, those of similar 

 fibers that belong to the nervus facialis. The conditions in 

 Polypterus, described immediately below, certainly favor this 

 conclusion, but they at the same time further complicate the 

 choice of a proper name for the nerve. 



In Polypterus there is a profundus ganglion which, in a 75-mm. 

 specimen examined in serial transverse sections, is extracranial 

 in position and lies wholly anterior to, and independent of, the 

 trigeminus ganglion. The root of this ganglion traverses a fora- 

 men that lies anterior to the foramina for the roots of the nervus 

 trigemmus, enters the medulla slightly anterior to the general 

 cutaneous root of the latter nerve, and is, so far as can be deter- 

 mined from my somewhat unperfect and unsatisfactory sections, 

 composed exclusively of general cutaneous fibers. From this 

 profundus ganglion a typical ramus ophthalmicus profundus 

 arises, and also either a single nerve, which immediately bifur- 

 cates, or two independent nerves, these latter one or two nerves 

 forming the portio ophthalmici profundi sho\vn by van Wijhe 

 ('82) in his figure of this fish. The branches of this ramus and 

 portio all join the ramus ophthalmicus superficialis, and, accom- 

 panying it and its branches, but in no way fusing with them, are 

 distributed mainly to tissues on the dorsal surface of the anterior 

 portion of the head. The ramus ophthalmicus superficialis arises 

 from a ganglion formed on two bundles of fibers, one of which 

 contains all the lateralis fibers that go to the rami ophthalmicus 

 and buccalis lateralis, while the other is an intracranial branch 

 of the communis root of the nervus facialis. These two roots 

 of this ganglion, which thus quite certainly contain no general 

 cutaneous fibers, issue together from the cavum cerebrale cranii, 

 and the ganglion formed on them lies dorsal to the ganglion 



