— 124 — 
»nervous retic.« others call it partly »retic. of connective-tissue«) or 
whether they are transsected tubes similar to the meshes produced by 
the transsection of the larger nerve-tubes with which we are alread}' 
acqvainted. In the former case, the hyaline substance seen within 
the meshes should be interfibrillar substance, in the latter case it 
must be a substance filling the tubes, probably hyaloplasm. 
On careful examination of transverse sections we will immediately 
receive a reply to this question. If the meshes are transsected tubes, 
we may expect to find in a section through a mass consisting of a 
plait of such slender tubes, not only transversally transsected tubes 
but also longitudinal transsected ones. And that is, in fact, the 
case. On a glance at fig. 62 (which represents a part of a trans- 
verse section through a ventral ganglion of Neplirox^s norvegicus, 
which is, however, so quite similar to Homarus, in this respect, that 
we can indeed see no difference) we will, in the fine reticulation 
[ds] be able to see transversally transsected tubes as well as longi- 
tudinally transsected ones, the latter having the shape of more or 
less oblong meshes. 
On examination of spots where small parts of nerves originate 
in similar masses of dotted substance, its composition of tubes 
will be still more evident. Fig. 61 represents such a spot, highly 
magnified, in the mesial part of the first ventral ganglion of Homa- 
rus. That the meshes, tpt, are transsected tubes is, I think, dis- 
tinctly seen; c is a tube partly longitudinally transsected; a is a 
bundle of similar tubes issuing from various parts of this mass of dotted 
substance and passing to the root of a nerve. Many similar proofs of 
the tube-nature of the meshes, seen in the dotted substance, can be 
found on examination of sections through the ganglia of Homarus, and 
each of them speaks so clearly that I think it, really, to be a waste 
of time to give further, circumstantial, description of it at present.^) 
Having thus elucidated this question regarding the tube struc- 
ture of the dotted substance, the next question of interest becomes 
— of what kind these tubes are, whether nerve-tubes or primitive 
tubes, or what else.? 
Nerve-tubes are, as previously mentioned, present in great plenty 
in the dotted substance, as will be seen in fig. 62 — 65. These nerve- 
tubes have all possible gradations from large, fig. 62, tnf and fnf, 
down to very small ones, of which we have, for instance, a trans- 
sected bundle in fig. 62, s nt. The smallest meshes or tubes, ås, 
^) In some parts of the dotted substance the tubes are somewhat loosely situ- 
ated, and the intervals between them are then filled with a neuroglia sp 07} ge -W ork. 
