364 



führbar, anstatt von elastischen Fasern des Bindegewebes von „gelben 

 Fasern" zu reden. Nach dem, was ich oben entwickelt habe, darf 

 man die alte Bezeichnungsweise auch fernerhin mit gutem Gewissen 

 beibehalten, ohne sich den Vorwurf der Unwissenschaftlichkeit zuzu- 

 ziehen. 



Nachdruck verboten. 



A Reply 

 to Certain of Cole's Criticisms of my Work on Amia calva. 



By Edwaed Phelps Allis jr. 



Cole, in his recent admirable work "On the Structure and Mor- 

 phology of the Cranial Nerves and Lateral Sense Organs in Fishes, 

 with special reference to the genus Gadus" (No. 6), makes frequent 

 reference to my works on Amia. While certain of these references 

 express a high appreciation of my work, in certain others Cole takes 

 such special and almost aggressive exception to several of my state- 

 ments, that some explanation from me is certainly called for. 



On p. 182 of his work Cole says : "(2) Infra-orbital canal. I must 

 first protest against Allis's definition of this canal, which is very un- 

 philosophical. He considers rightly the innervation of the lateral canals 

 to be the best criterion of their boundaries, and applies this method to 

 all but the infraorbital canal, yet offering no justification for the ex- 

 ception." 



This criticism of my use of the term infraorbital is not the first 

 one that has been made, but it is couched in terms my other critics 

 have not thought necessary to adopt. At the time I adopted and applied 

 it I was much impressed by the fact that the canal I so named in 

 Amia developed as a distinctly continuous canal, or line of canals, 

 and that, in its early development, it was wholly independent of the 

 supraorbital canal, with which it only later anastomosed. This method 

 of development of these two canals, which is wholly distinct and se- 

 parate from the manner of development of the sensory lines, or sensory 

 Anlagen, to the existence of which all the lateral canals owe their 

 origin, had never been noticed by earlier workers; Bridge (No. 4), 

 van Wijhe (No. 27), and Sagemehl (No. 21) all describing the infra- 

 orbital, or suborbital canal in Amia as a branch of the supraorbital 

 one, and Bridge and van Wijhe considering the latter canal as the 

 direct anterior continuation of the so-called main lateral canal of the 

 head and body. Traquair (No. 26), also, had made the same statement 

 regarding the relations of these same canals in Polypterus; and McMur- 

 rich (No. 15, p. 276) was apparently of the same opinion regarding 

 the canals in Amiurus. 



As I was firmly convinced, at the time, and still am, that what I 



