96 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
the nervous system, which are very closely related, and probably, 
through nerve-fibres, structurally continuous, seem to perform ver 
different functions,—the one originating currents, while the other 
is concerned more particularly with the distribution of these, and 
of secondary currents induced by them, in very many different 
directions. A current originating im a ganglion-cell would pro- 
bably give rise to many induced currents as it traversed a caudate 
nerve-cell, It seems probable that nerve-currents emanating from 
the rounded ganglion-cells may be constantly traversing the 
innumerable circuits in every part of the nervous system, and that 
nervous actions are due to a disturbance, perhaps a variation in 
the intensity of the currents, which must immediately result from 
the slightest change occurring in any part of the nerve-fibre, as 
well as from any physical or chemical alteration taking place in 
the nerve-centres, or in peripheral nervous organs. 
Linnean Society, Jay 5, 1864. 
Note on Canurus. By T. Spencer Cospzoxp, M.D., F.R.S., 
F.L.S., Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at the Middlesex 
Hospital. 
IT sua to call the attention of the Society to a specimen of 
Coenurus obtained from the viscera of an American Squirrel 
which died at the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, several 
years back. In doing so, my object is partly to correct the 
opinion, still very generally held, that there is only one kind of 
Coenurus, and partly, also, to point out the time when the ex- 
istence of a second kind of Coenurus was first demonstrated, and 
by whom, likewise, the discovery was made. When, in January 
1859, I described to the Society a large Coenurus obtained from 
the viscera of a Madagascar Lemur, I carefully abstained from 
theorizing on the subject, but I never entertained any doubt as 
to its distinctness from the ordinary Cenurus cerebralis of the 
Sheep. I refrained also from giving it any specific title, on the 
ground that it was only a larval parasite. Shortly afterwards, 
Leuckart, in one of his able, ‘Reports’ in Wiegmann’s Archiv 
(for 1860, 8S. 140), made special allusion to the description and 
figure as given in the Society’s ‘ Transactions,’ and at the same 
time referred to a case by Baillet who had recently discovered a 
Coenurus in the pectoral muscle of a rabbit; he also quotes a 
similar example by Eichler, who had found a Coenurus in the 
subdermal cellular tissue of a sheep. Until recently, I must 
confess that I was not aware that the discovery of a second kind 
of Coenurus dated even much earlier than the period here men- 
tioned, and I doubt if even Leuckart is yet aware of the earliest 
record on the subject. A few weeks ago, Mr. Caleb B. Rose, 
now of Great Yarmouth, but formerly of Swaffham, Norfolk, 
called my attention to the circumstance that he had described 
