322 H. M. BERNARD. 



nucleus, just below the nerve at tliis spot, and having no 

 associated cytoplasm, had its nuclear connecting fibrils 

 perfectly presei'ved and quite clear and distinct, and each 

 one ran into a separate fibril of the nerve-strand. 

 Other instances were seen immediately after, and the figures 

 might have been multiplied indefinitely. The nerve-fibrils 

 within the supporting tissue of the strand were stained darkly 

 and were comparatively thick, but the fibrils connecting them 

 with the nuclei appeared colourless and of the same delicacy 

 as those described above running from nucleus to nucleus. 



On turning to sections of other eyes, especially those 

 taken from the human retina, similar connections between 

 the nerves and the nuclei were found in great multi- 

 tudes, although, often as T had looked at the slides, I 

 had never seen them before. I found them equally clearly 

 in the sections in which the nerve-strands were cut length- 

 wise, as in those in which they were cut across. Though 

 the individual nerve-fibrils were not by any means so 

 sharply defined as in the stickleback, it was quite easy, in 

 both cases, to make out the continuity of the nuclear 

 filaments with the nerve-fibrils, as shown in the figures (7, 8, 

 9, 11, and 12). These figures are instructive, because they 

 show not only cases in which the nuclei were quite devoid of 

 all associated cytoplasm, but also others in which there were 

 masses of this substance. In these latter, the nuclear fibrils 

 showed the typical delicacy where they ran between the 

 nerve-strand and the granular cytoplasm, but within this 

 cytoplasm they would hardly have been visible, except for 

 the fact that they are frequently beaded with minute staining 

 clumps to all appearance exactly like those seen on the 

 threads running- down the rods (see fig. 21, and Part II, 

 fig. 29 b) . 



These observations, connecting primitive nerve-fibrillae 

 with nuclei, are not by any means the first of their kind. 

 Pluger^ described in 1871 the nerve-fibrillse running to the 

 level of the nuclei of the cells forming the ducts of the 



1 Strieker's 'Leliic von den Gewebcii,' vol. i (1S71), p. 312, figs. 7G and SO. 



