284 JOHANNA M. DIECKMANN. 



theca, and in Gyrinophilus in one group, caudal to the spermatheca. 

 Eurycea and Gyrinophilus however, have functional ventral glands, 

 while Hcmidactylium has none, in this respect resembling the 

 Plethodons and Desmognathns. 



Bishop states that mating in Hemidactyliuin probably takes 

 place in the spring ; he bases this conclusion on the fact that males 

 and females may be found together beneath logs or stones at this 

 time of the year, and on the observation that the ova in the ovaries 

 of animals in the succeeding month, were all less than 0.5 mm. 

 in diameter. The latter fact, to my mind, indicates only that 

 ovulation has recently occurred, and proves nothing as to the time 

 of mating. In the present study, the spermathecal tubules of 

 one of the animals (7.7 cm.) killed in August, are filled with 

 sperms. These are arranged in whorls, as has been noted in other 

 species when sperms are abundant. The animal would seem to 

 have mated after its May ovulation (ova in the ovary are less 

 than i.o mm. in size). This finding is in harmony with the idea 

 that sperms may be stored in the spermatheca of urodeles for 

 a considerable time, and that the organ is a device for insuring 

 fertilization of ova in animals which lead a solitary life for a large 

 part of the year. 



Gyrinophilus and the seven forms described by Kingsbury, fall 

 rather naturally into a phylogenetic series, as was discussed in 

 the previous paper. The trend during phylogeny seems to have 

 been toward the aggregation of the tubules about a specially modi- 

 fied portion of the cloaca 3 the reduction in number of tubules and 

 loss of their flask shape, and the suppression of glands. Hemi- 

 dactylimn cannot be placed in the series, which begins with Ambly- 

 stoma, and which is characterized by the modification of a portion 

 of the cloaca into a common tube, for it has retained the primitive 

 plan of spermatheca seen in Necturus; namely, tubules opening 

 separately on the lateral walls of a mid-dorsal slit. It typifies 

 nevertheless, two other tendencies noted in the phylogenetic series ; 

 namely, reduction in number and change in form of spermathecal 

 tubules, and reduction in number and functional activity of glands. 



3 Kingsbury's suggestion that the depression into which spermathecal tubules 

 open in Amblystoma, and the common tube of the organ in more highly developed 

 forms, are really a portion of the cloaca, seems justified by the manner of develop- 

 ment of the spermatheca in Gyrinophilus, and in Eurycea (Koehring, '25). 



