prolongations of the epithelium-cells, and that afterwards these prolongations gradually disappeared, leaving only their remnants to develop into the ordinary ganglion-cells already described. [3] This is the name given to a small annular sheet of tissue which forms a kind of floor to the orifice of the swimming-bell, through the central opening of which floor the manubrium passes. The structure is shown in Fig. 1. Beneath the upper nerve-ring lies the lower nerve-ring. It is inserted between the muscle-tissue of the veil and umbrella, in the midst of a broad strand wherein muscle-fibres are entirely absent. It here constitutes a thin though broad layer which, like the upper nerve-ring, belongs to the ectoderm. It also consists of the same elements as the upper nerve-ring, viz. of nerve-fibres and ganglion-cells. Yet there is so distinct a difference of character between the elements composing the two nerve-rings, that even in an isolated portion it is easy to tell from which ring the portion has been taken. That is to say, in the lower nerve-ring there are numerous nerve-fibres of considerable thickness, which contrast in a striking manner with the almost immeasurably slender fibres of the upper nerve-ring. A second point of difference consists in the surprising wealth of ganglion-cells in the one ring as compared with the other. Thus, on the whole, there is no doubt that the lower nerve-ring presents a higher grade of structure than does the upper, as shown not only by the greater multiplicity of nerve-cells and fibres, but also by the relation in which these elements stand to the epithelium. For in the case of the lower nerve-ring, the presumably primitive connections of the nervous elements with the epithelium is well-nigh dissolved--this nerve-ring having thus separated itself from its parent structure, and formed for itself an independent layer beneath the epithelium. The two nerve-rings are separated from one another by a very thin membrane, which, in some species at all events, is bored through by strands of nerve-fibres which serve to connect the two nerve-rings with one another.