370 



"accepts" a hardly legitimate interpretation. Cole, on the contrary, 

 considers the descriptions sufficiently definite to affirm , positively, that 

 the several canals are "exactly the same" ; and this notwithstanding a 

 statement he has but just made, that the canal in Polypterus "must 

 remain a mystery until Pollard's work is revised". 



Pollard says the innervation of his canal in Clarias is by the 

 recurrent facialis, and that in Auchenaspis it is probably by the same 

 nerve. I assumed that this innervation, thus described by him, was 

 by fibres of the lateralis vagi that had joined the recurrent facialis in 

 an important communicating branch described by Pollard as the ramus 

 supratemporalis. I did not venture to question the accuracy of the ob- 

 servations, as I could neither directly nor indirectly control them; for in 

 so far as indirect control is here concerned, it is not to be overlooked 

 that the supratemporal branch of the nervus lineae lateralis vagi in 

 Amia closely accompanies the corresponding branch of the vagus and 

 does innervate the sense organs of the supratemporal commissure. 



Alcock, in her recent work on Ammocoetes (No. 0), describes a 

 nerve, tke "n. Lat. VII and X", which, in its apparent origin and posi- 

 tion, strongly resembles Pollard's recurrent facialis. If it should prove 

 to be the homologue of that nerve, a pure supposition, the true lateral 

 line nerve of Ammocoetes would have to be sought in the united, so- 

 called dorsal branches of the several vagal nerves. 



On p. 172 Cole quotes from my work a rather long paragraph 

 relating to the nerve just above referred to, the great recurrent branch 

 of the facialis, and then, having prefaced his remarks by the statement 

 that "this passage is unfortunate in many respects", he proceeds to dis- 

 cuss it under five separate heads. 



To the first and second counts he there makes against me I can 

 simply plead guilty. I did not look up the literature relating either 

 to Gadus or to Silurus, nor did I consult text-books or practical hand- 

 books other than the two given in my bibliography; and Parker's 

 Zootomy was, unfortunately, not one of them. This latter fact might, 

 however, have been overlooked by Cole, since, in a foot-note on p. 117 

 of his memoir, he says, in explaining his own practice, "I purposely 

 omit references to text-books that are in constant use, such as 

 T. J. Parker's 'Zootomy' etc." I myself had the two fishes before me, 

 instead of the practical hand-books, and I made my relatively simple 

 references to them without duly considering the fact that carelessness 

 on my part, if not even a claim to priority, might be ascribed to them. 

 Cole, also, it is to be noted, not unfrequently lays himself fairly open 

 to this same serious imputation, as, for a single example, in the fol- 

 lowing passage on p. 173: "Allis, after describing two branches of 

 the ophthalmicus trigemini which seem to me to correspond to the 

 anterior or trigemino-facial root of the accessory lateral system of Gadus, 

 etc." ; a conclusion which certainly is, in the new dress of certain terms 

 proposed by Cole, exactly the homology I sought to establish in the 

 very passage of my memoir he is so severely criticising. 



As to the third count against me, as I had, unfortunately, no ac- 



