248 NERVE COMPONENTS OF BONY FISHES. 



these sheets pass through the press (July, 1899), I shall 

 here omit the somewhat extended critique of Cole's work 

 which I had originally prepared, and content myself with 

 the statement that I do not confirm his findings with 

 reference to the geniculate ganglion and the facial root of 

 the r. lateralis accessorius of the cod. 



In brief, the relations of the geniculate and sympathetic 

 ganglia are almost exactly as in Menidia, though the 

 whole trigemino-facial complex is much more compact in 

 Gadus. The geniculate ganglion is wholly intra-cranial 

 and so closely joined to the Gasserian ganglion that Cole 

 failed to differentiate them and mistook the extra-cranial 

 sympathetic ganglion for the geniculate. The root of the 

 r. lateralis accessorius arises wholly from the geniculate 

 and not at all from the Gasserian, just as in Menidia. 

 The details of these connections in Gadus with full illus- 

 tration will be published shortly. 



A word further upon the question of "collector " nerves. 

 Of the longitudinal nerve trunks running through the 

 body the sympathetic chain, with its anastomosis with 

 every spinal nerve, is the best illustration of a true col- 

 lector nerve. The older writers have frequently described 

 the r. lateralis vagi as a similar collector, supposing that 

 it receives accessions from each spinal nerve through the 

 r. medius. This, we now know, is not the case, as there 

 is no anastomosis here such as would justify us in regard- 

 ing the r. lateralis as a collector. There remains to be con- 

 sidered the r. lateralis accessorius. Stannius lays great 

 stress (p. 151) upon this nerve as a collector of all spinal 

 and spinal-like nerves. In view of its function as the 

 nerve supply for the dorsal row of terminal buds, it is not 

 probable that its primary form was that of a collector; 

 nevertheless its uniform anastomosis with the spinals is to 

 be explained. 



