The derivation of the olfactory organs of the vertebrate from the olfactory
antennæ of the arthropod in the last chapter is confirmatory proof of the
soundness of the proposition put forward in Chapter IV., that the
segmentation in the cranial region of the vertebrate was derived from that
of the prosomatic and mesosomatic regions of the palæostracan ancestor.
Such a segmentation implies a definite series of body-segments,
corresponding to the mesomeric segmentation of the vertebrate, and a
definite series of appendages corresponding to the splanchnic segmentation
of the vertebrate.
Of the foremost segments belonging to the supra-oesophageal region
characterized by the presence of the median eyes, of the lateral eyes, and
of the olfactory organs, a wonderfully exact replica has been shown to
exist in the pineal eyes, the lateral eyes, and the olfactory organ of the
vertebrate, belonging, as they all do, to the supra-infundibular region.
Of the infra-oesophageal segments belonging to the prosoma and mesosoma
respectively, the correspondence between the mesosomatic segments carrying
the branchial appendages and the uterus, with those in the vertebrate
carrying the branchiæ and the thyroid gland respectively, has been fully
proved in previous chapters.
There remain, then, only the segments of the prosomatic region to be
considered, a region which, both in the vertebrate and invertebrate, is
never respiratory in function but always masticatory, such {234}mastication
being performed in Limulus and its allies by the muscles which move the
foot-jaws or gnathites, which are portions of the prosomatic appendages
specially modified for that purpose, and in the vertebrates by the
masticatory muscles, which are always innervated by the trigeminal or Vth
cranial nerve. This comparison implies that the motor part of the
trigeminal nerve originally supplied the prosomatic appendages.
The investigations of van Wijhe and of all observers since the publication
of his paper prove that in this trigeminal region, as in the vagus region,
a double segmentation exists, of which the ventral or splanchnic segments,
corresponding to the appendages in the invertebrate, are supplied by the
trigeminal nerves, while the dorsal or somatic segments, corresponding to
the somatic segments in the invertebrate, are supplied by the IIIrd or
oculomotor and the IVth or trochlear nerves--nerves which supply muscles
moving the lateral eyes.
In accordance, then, with the evidence afforded by the nerves of the
branchial segments, it follows that the muscles supplied by the motor part
of the trigeminal ought originally to have moved the appendages belonging
to a series of prosomatic segments. On the other hand, the eye-muscles
ought to have belonged to the body-part of the prosomatic segments, and
must therefore have been grouped originally in a segmental series
corresponding to the prosomatic appendages.
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