208 MODE OF TERMINATION OF MOTOR NERVES, BY W. KUHNE. 



led to the same conclusion. The forms that the nerve emi- 

 nence may assume are very various, sometimes constituting a 

 pointed cone, at others a low rounded elevation, whilst in 

 others, again, it is almost flat, varieties that are doubtless 

 attributable to the traction which has been exerted in the 

 nerve in the preparation of the specimen. Nevertheless we 

 may sometimes see, if not the pointed limpet-like cones, 

 yet elevations of considerable height on muscular fibres, whose 

 nerves have not been disturbed, as well as in flat portions of 

 muscles which have been removed from the surface with 

 scissors. We may therefore apply the general term of nerve 

 eminence to the whole nervous expansion at this point, and 

 honour its discoverer by naming it the Doyerian eminence. 

 Wherever a nerve terminates, it will be found that the con- 

 tractile substance is covered beneath the nerve eminence with 

 the secondary constituents of the mass ; that is, with nuclei, 

 granules, molecules, and the like. This relation is perfectly 

 intelligible in the case of those muscular fibres which possess 

 an entire investment of this substance ; but it is also found 

 where the chief strise of it do not lie immediately beneath 

 the sarcolemma, but are present as a central axis only, in 

 which case the latter forms a conical projection, that passes 

 transversely through the contractile substance, and nearly 

 reaches the apex of the Doyerian eminence. In other cases, 

 where elongated small masses are found immediately beneath 

 the sarcolemma, these lose their otherwise straight form, and 

 bulge upwards towards the nerve eminence. The eminence 

 has in some instances only a single process, running in a longi- 

 tudinal direction from its basis, but more frequently there are 

 two, which pass in opposite directions. The termination of 

 the axis cylinder in the eminence, and its usually forked divi- 

 sion, does not appear to have been clearly recognised by the 

 greater number of observers. Rouget considers that it termi- 

 nates in the Crustacea in a blunt point at the line of junction 

 of the granular nucleated mass with the contractile substance ; 

 whilst in Beetles, after a somewhat longer course, it terminates 

 at the same point. It will not be possible, without further 

 investigation, to decide the question in regard to the final dis- 

 position of the axis cylinder ; for, however probable Rouget's 



