320 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



regard to branches i and 2, since I only mentioned them be- 

 cause they passed through the " facial" ganglion, I did not 

 trace their peripheral course carefully. Branch 3 is correctly 

 identified by Herrick. The nerve I referred to as the " pre- 

 spiracular or chorda tympani division of the facial" was dis- 

 sected carefully on many specimens as regards its proximal 

 course, and was traced on to the lower jaw peripherally. It is 

 lettered H^ in my Fig. 2. Prof. Herrick has shown that it is 

 not the pre-spiracular nerve, and hence cannot be the chorda 

 tympani. Were it not for his statement that the post-spiracular 

 communis component is lacking in Gadus (which surprised me 

 after reading his Menidia paper), I should have said it was the 

 r. mandibularis internus VII, as he uses this term. I think now 

 it must be the communis fibers in the mandibularis V, although 

 the course of the latter is different from that as observed by me. 

 5. Ramus lateralis accessorius. With regard to this ques- 

 tion, it must at the outset be understood that the first n'^/ dem- 

 onstration of the communis nature of this system was by Prof. 

 Herrick himself in his Menidia paper — a work published after 

 my own. Working on the basis of Strong's paper, I think I 

 was justified in concluding (p, 141, foot-note) that the com- 

 munis system was a visceral system of nerves. Prof, Herrick 

 still believes that to be the case, and holds that the somatic dis- 

 tribution of the communis fibers has been secondarily acquired. 

 It now seems to me, however, that it may be precisely the 

 opposite that has occurred. If we believe with Dohrn in the 

 gill slit origin of the mouth (a view which has distinctly gained 

 ground lately), and if I am right in saying that the communis 

 fibers are distributed mostly to the mucous membrane of the 

 stomodaeal involution and the outer skin, it seems at least as 

 probable that it was originally a cutaneous system, which has, 

 like the early teeth, invaded the mouth. The above statement 

 re the communis nature of the accessorius explains our differ- 

 ences as to Baudelot. The essential difference between the two 

 kinds of fibers was not established at the time I was writing, 

 and hence the confusion. Since writing the above, I have con- 

 cluded that the communis nature of the lateralis accessorius 



