NERVE TERMINATIONS OF THE TADPOLE. 65 
numerous in my preparations, and I had but a few opportu- 
nities for observing them well. From such as were examined, 
however, I find their terminal intracellular nerve-fibrils are 
more numerous than is the case with the other epithelial cells. 
How came Pfitzner to mistake the figures of Eberth for 
nerve terminations ? 
From my own observations of these structures in various 
stages of larval life, and from a comparison of these observa- 
tions with figs. 1 and 3 of Pfitzner’s work, I am led to believe 
that he took for typical the forms as they are found a short 
time before the commencement of the resorption of the tail. 
At this time the majority of the figures of Eberth are slimmer, 
and invest the nerve-fibrils closely. By comparing his fig. 3 
with fig. 3 given here it will be seen that the nerve termina- 
tions indicated by him are similar in every respect to those 
drawn by me, save that he recognises no intercellular endings. 
His method of manipulation accounts for the supposed nerve 
terminations being so large, as the figures of Eberth are 
stained, and not the fibrils occupying their axes. Pfitzner is 
wrong also when he describes the intercellular fibrils as having, 
each of the two, a different origin. As I have already stated 
the fibrils supplying the different cells take their origin from a 
set of fibrils on a level with the superior face of the corium. 
Regarding the arrangement of the coarser subcutaneous 
nerve-fibres in what is now termed the fundamental plexus, 
the observations of Hensen, Eberth, Klein, Leboucq, and 
Gaule! practically agree, and their descriptions are so complete 
that I am unable to add anything of importance. The second 
plexus described by Klein I have not seen, and I am convinced 
from a study of vertical sections that the fibrils which pierce 
the corium arise, without the intermediation of a second plexus, 
direct from the fundamental plexus. Gaule’s secondary plexus, 
if I understand his description rightly, is placed below the 
corium, where I cannot find the slightest traces of it. It* 
would, if placed above the corium, seem to agree with the 
‘ A continuation of Canini’s work, ‘ Arch. fiir Anat. und Phys.,’ Phys. 
Abth., 1883, p. 154. 
VOL, XXVI.—NEW SER. b 
