The interior of the eye presents the appearance of a cavity in shape like a
cornucopia, the stalk of which terminates at the place where the nerve
enters. This cavity is not empty, but the posterior part of it is filled
with the termination of the nerve end-cells of the retina, as pointed out
by me and confirmed by Studniçka. These terminations are free from pigment,
and contain strikingly translucent bodies, which I have described in my
paper in the _Quarterly Journal_, and called rhabdites, for they present
the same appearance and are situated in the same position as are many of
the rhabdites on the terminations of the retinal end-cells of arthropod
eyes. Studniçka has also seen these appearances, and figures them in his
second paper on the nerve end-cells of the pineal eye of Ammocoetes.
Up to this point the following conclusions may be drawn:--
1. Ammocoetes possesses a pair of median eyes, just as was the case with
the most ancient fishes, and with the members of the contemporary
palæostracan group.
2. The retina of one of these eyes is well-defined and upright, not
inverted, and therefore in this respect agrees with that of all median
eyes.
3. The presence of nerve end-cells, with pigment either in them or in
cells around them, to the unpigmented ends of which translucent bodies
resembling rhabdites are attached, is another proof that this retina
agrees with that of the median eyes of arthropods.
4. The simple nature of the nerve with its termination in an optic
ganglion closely resembling in structure an arthropod optic ganglion,
together with Studniçka's statement that the nerve end-cells pass
directly into the nerve, points directly to the conclusion that this
retina is a simple, not a compound, retina, and that it therefore in this
respect also agrees with the retina of all median eyes.
With respect to this last conclusion, neither I myself nor Studniçka have
been able to see any definite groups of cells between the nerve end-cells
and the optic nerve such as a compound retina necessitates.
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