158 Miscellaneous. 
branous expansion, bordered by a fringe composed of innumerable 
tentacular barbules. This veil receives large nerves, which, after 
issuing from the subcesophageal ganglia or from the cerebrum, divide 
and subdivide so as to distribute themselves throughout its whole 
extent. The branches of these nerves at first anastomose in arches, 
then, having arrived beneath the tentacular filaments of the marginal 
fringe, they form lozenge-shaped networks or plexuses of inconceiv- 
able richness. Delle Chiaje saw these and figured them in part, but 
very coarsely. 
In the angles of union of the anastomoses we most commonly find 
a ganglionic swelling destined to reinforce the nerves, which would 
otherwise soon exhaust themselves by their infinite divisions. 
Upon the meshes of the network, perpendicularly to the surface, 
nerves arise which penetrate directly into the tentacular barbules. 
A very remarkable fact is observed in the distribution of these nerves. 
In proportion as they advance into the tentacle, their subdivisions 
increase in number, until, in approaching the extremities, the trans- 
parency of the tissues is obscured by the quantity of their ramifica- 
tions ; and at the very apex of the tentacle the nervous trunks and 
their anastomoses become so voluminous and so considerable that 
observation by transmitted light, without preparation, is very diffi- 
cult, and the end of the tentacle itself appears blackish. 
Greatly multiplied collateral anastomotic branches detach them- 
selves from the central trunk which occupies the axis of the tentacle, 
unite with each other, forming arches, and often become so slender 
that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them in the midst 
of the fine strize produced by the cellular fibrille. 
It would be supposed that the nearer a nerve approached its termi- 
nation, the more delicate would its branches become. Here quite 
the contrary is the case, the anastomotic loops are more numerous 
and thicker towards the extremity, and in this part of the filaments 
we find hardly any delicate fibres. All the secondary nerves are 
nearly as thick as the trunk of the principal nerve at its origin. It 
is true that from place to place, and at nearly all the angles of ana- 
stomoses, there are dilatations, or ganglia of reinforcement, in the 
structure of which nervous cells and ganglionic corpuscles are re- 
cognized. 
The termination is extremely simple. From the surface of those 
terminal networks of which the meshes are formed by the large 
ramifications just mentioned, there rise, towards the extremity, some 
processes in the form of rounded clubs, which come quite cluse to the 
outer surface, and are only separated from it by a thin layer of the 
fibrous framework of the barbule and an external epithelial layer. 
When we examine the nerves of the tentacles, we find that they 
are formed of a pellicular envelope, and that their contents are a 
mixture of molecular corpuscles, fine granulations, sometimes small 
cells, and a gelatinous fluid, forming by their union the medullar 
ortion. 
The central masses present very remarkable peculiarities which I 
cannot indicate here. The nervous cells and elements are enclosed 
