"The epithelium of the optic stalk develops entirely into supporting cells, which in Petromyzon fill up the original lumen and so form an axial core (Axenstrang) to the nerve-fibres which are formed entirely outside them; the projections of these supporting cells are directed towards the periphery, and so separate the bundles of the optic nerve-fibres. The mesodermal coat of the optic stalk takes no part in this separation; it simply forms the connective tissue sheath of the optic nerve. The development of the optic nerve in the higher vertebrates also obeys the same law, as I am bound to conclude from my own observations." The evidence, then, of Ammocoetes is very conclusive. Originally a tube composed of a single layer of epithelial cells became expanded at the anterior end to form a bulb. On the outside of this tube or stalk the fibres of the optic nerve make their appearance, arising from the ganglion-cell layer of the retina, and, passing over the surface of the epithelial tube at the choroidal fissure, proceed to the brain by way of the optic chiasma. Owing to the large number of fibres, their crossing at the junction of the stalk with the bulb, and the narrowness at this neck, the obliteration of the lumen of the tube which takes place in the stalk is carried out to a still greater extent at this narrow part. The result of this is that all continuity of the cell-layers of the original tube of the optic stalk with those of both the inner and outer walls of the bulb is interrupted, and all that remains in this spot of the original continuous line of cells which connected the tube of the stalk with that of the bulb are possibly some of the groups of cells which are found scattered among the fibres of the optic nerve at their entrance into the retina. Such separation of the originally continuous elements of the epithelial wall of the optic stalk, which is apparent only at this neck of the nerve in Petromyzon, takes place {107}along the whole of the optic nerve in the higher vertebrates, so that no continuous axial core of cells exist, but only scattered supporting cells.