1/2 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



dies, found in the eye-muscles of man, in which both extremi- 

 ties are tendinous ; (2) compound spindles, united together 

 along their whole length, but each part having an independent 

 nerve supply ; (3) neuro-tendinous end-organs into which some 

 of the muscle fibers are prolonged into the organ to the margin 

 and even to the middle of the nerve plaque. 



His description of the nerve ending is as follows : The 

 numerous ramifications of the axis cylinders, which compose 

 the nerve plaque in the neuro-tendinous end-organ show along 

 their course certain enlargements of different form and size, 

 described by most writers as nuclei, but really, he believes, 

 masses of one of the two substances of which the axis cylinder 

 is composed (neuroplasm). Most of these ramifications are 

 plates with one or several transverse projections or " cretes 

 d'empreinte. " These ramifications are arranged in different 

 planes, thus producing the plexus-Hke appearance described by 

 Golgi and others who viewed the corpuscles only in surface 

 preparations. Sections — cross and longitudinal — showed that 

 " the branches of the axis cylinder run across the loose connec- 

 tive tissue which binds the primary tendon bundles together, 

 then penetrate these latter and continue to ramify in a bush-like 

 manner ; each branch surrounds in spiral or ring, in several 

 parts of their length, one or several of the small bundles of 

 dense fibrillar connective tissue of which each primary tendon 

 bundle is composed." 



This description of nerve ending applies also to the ending 

 of the nerves in the neuro-tendinous end-organs of birds. 



In reptilia, however, in which he has studied the tendons 

 of the interspinous muscles of the Coluber nahix and of the 

 gastrocnemius of the Laccrta agilis, no encapsulated organs are 

 found. The nerve plaques are distributed along the medullated 

 nerves which divide repeatedly and end in the depths of the 

 tendon in a confused intercrossing of very fine fibers, thread- 

 like or ribbon-like, beset with projections of different form and 

 size. These fibers also surround the primary tendon bundles in 

 ring or spiral before their final termination. 



In amphibia, however, he finds no plaque as above de- 



