282 



JOHANNA M. D1ECKMANN. 



ticulum (recess), a feature which appears, among the forms so 

 far described, only in the Plethodons and Gyrinophilus. 



The sperm-storing organ is confined to the region above the 

 dorsal elevation. It consists of a few tubules (three on one side 

 and four on the other in one of the animals ) , which open into the 

 lateral walls of the dorsal slit in its extreme cephalic portion, 

 just at the point where it passes over into the dorsal expansion. 

 From these openings, the long slender necks of the tubules extend 

 caudally ; each neck terminates in an irregularly branched end- 

 piece. Branching of spermathecal tubules, observed in only a few 

 instances in the series of Gyrinophilus, is conspicuous in the end- 

 pieces of the tubules of Hemidactylium. Moreover, some of the 

 terminal branches in this species are not bulbous, but longer and 

 more slender, resembling large tubular glands. The region in 



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3 30 



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FIG. i. Cloaca of Hemidactylium female (adult, 7.1 cm.), at a level some 

 distance caudal to the openings of the spermathecal tubules. In the dorsal wall 

 of the cloaca, the two folds comprising the dorsal elevation are seen, with the 

 median dorsal slit between them. Just above, on each side, are the narrow necks 

 of spermathecal tubules, which open separately into the dorsal slit cephalad to 

 this level; above these, the expanded, branched end-pieces of spermathecal tubules. 

 Pigment is seen between the two groups of tubules, around the organ as a whole, 

 and in the wall of the cloaca. ( X 30.) 



which the spermathecal tubules open is free from glands, but 

 opening into the more caudal portion of the dorsal slit, inter- 

 mingled with the caudal ends of the spermathecal tubules, there is 

 a group of seven or eight pairs of very small, slightly tortuous 

 gland tubules. 



