xcvi Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



toli, in 1876, and others) which pass up between the taste-bulbs and 

 end free at the surface. They probably are not concerned wiih the 

 sense of taste. 2. Perigemmal fibres (one to three in number) pass 

 to the base of the bulb and rise up, branching freely and enveloping 

 the bulb completely. They do not anastomose but each branchlet 

 ends free in a little tuberosity. These relations are shown in the fig- 

 ure (Plate XIV, Fig. 7) copied from Lenhossek's. In the fish 

 (Barbus) intergemmal fibres cannot be demonstrated and the perigem- 

 mal fibres are much more regularly arranged, all ending in a ring at 

 the apex of the bulb (Plate XIV, Fig. 8.) In this fish to a slight ex- 

 tent (Plate XIV, Fig. 8, c) and much more conspicuously in Conger 

 vulgaris, these fibres give off, just as they separate at the base of the 

 bulb, numerous short, exceedingly varicose fibrils which form a cup- 

 shaped body ("cupula") enveloping the base of the bulb. In the 

 latter type, too, there are fibres loosely enveloping the neck of the 

 taste-bulb which are probably homologous with the intergemmal fibres 

 of the rabbit. 



As to the morphological significance of the taste-cells, the author 

 continues : "By their characteristic reactions with stains, their form, 

 their cilia, and above, all their functional significance, they ally them- 

 selves directly with nerve-cells, from which they are distinguished 

 only by the lack of a nervous process. They represent as it were 

 short nerve-cells without processes, nerve-bodies in which the function of 

 the process has been supplanted by projections which pass to them 

 from other distant cells. 



" From the results recently brought out as to nerve-termini in 

 the auditory organ^ (Retzius), in the skin of vertebrates (Fr. Eilh. 

 Schulze, van Gehuchten, Retzius), in addition to the present contri- 

 butions, we are in a position to assert that that relation which the au- 

 thor and Retziu% have shown in the skin of the earthworm prevails in the 

 vertebrates in no place except in the olfactory mucous membrane.'" 



Retzms, in the work cited above, agrees perfectly with the re- 

 sults of Lenhossek, except that in his earlier paper (Vol. IV) he found 

 branches of the perigemmal fibres penetrating into the taste-bulbs be- 

 tween the taste-cells. This however he does not find in the fish. In 

 his later paper (Vol. V) he says : "I have recently in Golgi prepara- 

 tions of the mucous membrane of the mouth of Salmo salar been 



^ It will be noticed that this does not agree with the recent results of Ayers 

 on the connections of the hair-cells of the auditory organ, as noticed elsewhere 

 in this number (p. Ixxxviii.) 



