460 AVERS. [Vol. VIII. 



between these structures (the latter of which as yet they do 

 not appear to recognize at all) they are sure of perpetuating 

 some of the errors they have already published. 



H. The Maculae and Cristae, especially the Macula saccidi. 



The hair-cells of the maculae and cristae are readily stained 

 in continuity with their nerve fibres and the conditions are not 

 fundamentally different from those described above for the hair- 

 cells of the cochlea, though the relation of the parts in the 

 maculae and cristae is simpler and more primitive, and deserves 

 careful study on this account, since it enables us to better 

 unravel the intricacies of cochlear anatomy. The acoustic 

 cells PL II, Fig. 16; PL III, Fig. 29, reach only about half 

 way from the epithelial surface to the basement membrane and 

 the nerves from these cells pass, of course, interepithelially 

 downwards and through the floor of the sensory structure and 

 form into the nerve trunk of the same name as its respective 

 organ. Ganglion cells have not been stained on any of the 

 fibres from the maculae in my Golgi preparations and I notice 

 Van Gehuchten has had the same experience. There is how- 

 ever no reason to doubt their occurrence here and Retzius 

 records finding them by this method. In most sections (per- 

 pendicular to the surface) of the maculae acusticae (specifically 

 in this instance Mac. ac. sacculi) the hairs from the tops of the 

 hair-cells are more or less bent, oftentimes considerably so, by 

 the contraction and consequent greater pressure of the otolithic 

 mass upon the surface of these organs, as is illustrated in PL II, 

 Fig. 16 and PL III, Fig. 30b. In such cases the length of the 

 hairs on the cells is seen to be double that usually obtained by 

 measurement after removal of the otoliths. 



In PL III, Fig. 29 I have sketched with aid of a camera 

 some of the stained nerve fibres and bodies present in a thick 

 section of the saccular sense organ of the pig of 14 cm length. 

 There are three points here shown which are of frequent 

 occurrence and therefore usual and normal and which appear 

 to be of importance in comparison with cochlear anatomy. At 

 the bases of the hair-cells among the nerve fibres relatively 

 large bodies certainly cellular in nature occur. They have 

 many fibres running from them. These same figures are seen 



