268 DISTRIBUTION OF NERVE-FIBRES, ETC. 



violent, while it is probable that the contractions com- 

 mencing at these points would extend, as it were, 

 from them along the fibre in opposite directions. 



I consider these nerve-tufts therefore simply as 

 collections of nerve-fibres, differing only from the 

 ordinary arrangement before described, somewhat in 

 the same manner as the compressed nerve-network in 

 a highly sensitive papilla differs from the lax ex- 

 panded nerve-network in the almost insensitive con- 

 nective tissue. 



286. Distribution of nerve fibres to the elemen- 

 tary muscular fibres. The individual muscular fibres 

 of the tongue of the chameleon are separated from 

 one another by a distance greater than their diameter, 

 so that the finest nerve fibres can be seen in the 

 intervals between them and traced over or under them 

 without difficulty. In my specimens many of the 

 so-called "nerve tufts" can be discerned, but in 

 every instance more than one individual nerve fibre 

 can be traced to the tuft, and it can be demon- 

 strated that the "tuft" consists of continuous fibres, 

 exhibiting various degrees of coiling. It is not a 

 terminal organ connected with the end of a single 

 fibre. From every one of these " nerve tufts " fibres 

 may be traced and followed for a considerable dis- 

 tance over many muscular fibres beyond. Plate XII, 

 fig. 2 ; Plate XIII, figs. 1, 2, 3. There are no ends 

 nor terminations. 



287. Nerve tufts exceptional. It seems to me most 

 probable that these bodies are exceptional and not 

 present in all muscles, nor essential to voluntary 

 muscle generally. As in other tissues the peripheral 

 arrangement of the nerves in voluntary muscle is a 

 continuous network, in which the nearest approach 

 to an "end" or "termination" is a loop. Kiihne 

 is, I think, wrong in concluding that the nerve tuft is 

 situated beneath the sarcolemma and is in contact with 

 the contractile tissue. Like many of the nerves these 



