SYRSKI ON THE ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION OF FISHES. 727 



bodies; bat the description which he gives of them being in some respects 

 inaccurate, pre-eminence must be accorded to that of Mundini. 



Spallanzani, 1 a distinguished naturalist who lived toward the end of 

 the eighteenth and in the beginning of the present century, basing his 

 opinion on the examination of 497 eels, casts doubts on the discovery of 

 Mundini, remarking " that not content with destroying, he wishes to 

 erect on the Yallisuerian ruins a new edifice." These words, however, 

 lead us to suppose that a certain animosity toward the anatomist 

 Mundini, whom he possibly considered as an intruder among the zoolo- 

 gists, has led his judgment astray. In another place, moreover, he contra- 

 dicts himself when he adds: " If the masses of little globules were eggs, 

 and if they were found united with the fecundating semen, the eels 

 would be true hermaphrodites." 



EathJce, 2 who first, since Mundini, has in detail described (1824, 1838, 

 and 1850) the ovaries of the eel, is considered by some to have recog- 

 nized them ; but this, however, is not true, the additions made by him 

 to Mundini's description being to a great extent erroneous. It is not 

 true that the transverse leaflets are wanting in the ovaries of the eel, as 

 he asserts in his last work, contrary to his former description, which was 

 probably based on the law of analogy, and that thereby they are dis- 

 tinguished from those of the salmon and sturgeon. It is not true, what 

 Eathke likewise asserts, that the genital opening of the eel consists of 

 two small canals, for I have invariably only found one, which opens in 

 the urethra. Eathke has certainly described the eggs quite exactly, 

 distinguishing the larger whitish ones, having a diameter of about one- 

 fifteenth of a line, and the smaller transparent ones, with the germinal 

 vesicle inside; but Mundini likewise says: " innumeras sphcerulas mini- 

 mas, (equates, pellucidas, divisas tamen, qua; in centro maculam ostendebant 

 ecc. vidi", thus showing the true nature of the ovaries and the eggs, and 

 contrasting them with the fatty formation and with the ovaries and 

 eggs of other osseous fish. 



If, as we have thus seen, it took more than two thousand years to 

 find out, and this even inaccurately, the ovaries, which are much larger 

 than the spermatic organs, it is but natural that it was no easy matter 

 to find these, which resemble two rows of small lobes, about two to three 

 millimeters large, and are of almost glassy appearance, starting from 

 the same place where in the females the ovaries are found, and running 

 both on the right and left side along the whole length of the abdominal 

 cavity. 



Mundini 3 and Spallanzani have sought the spermatic organs of the eel 

 in vain. 



1 Due opuscoli sulle anguille. Appeuclice ai viaggi alle due Sicilie. Vol. vi. 1792. 



4 Beitrage zur Geschichte der Thierwelt. Halle, 1824. — Wiegmann's Archiv far Natur- 

 geschichte. Vol. i. p. 299. 1838. — Muller's Archiv fur Anatomie, Physiologic, &c. Vol. 

 i, p. 203. 1850. 



8 Memoria autografa del Mundini, del 1788, in the possession of Mr. Gualtiero Sac- 

 chetti, engineer. 



