ON THE APPENDICES GENITAI.ES (CLASPERS) IN THE GREENLAND SHARK. 



suppose, as Sir W. Turner 1 ) does, another mode of bringing forth the ova in this than in other 

 Sharks; the ova certainly all get into the oviduct, and are impregnated there; whether they later are 

 laid or develop into embryos in the u terns must for the present be left undecided 2 ). 



On the internal reproductive organs of the male only one communication (2) has been given, 

 concerning a specimen of the length of 6 ft. i in. The testes were immature; neither by the direct 

 examination of them and their mesorchium nor by injection from the renal duct was Sir W.Turner 

 able to detect any duct for the sperm, and from that he infers that distinct sexual ducts are also 

 wanting in the male, and that the sperm is evacuated into the abdominal cavity, thus cpiite corre- 

 sponding to the case of the females, as it the previous year had been understood with regard to those; 

 but while the statement has been corrected by T. himself with regard to the latter, nothing has as 

 vet come to light concerning the male. I think, however, that the supposition is allowable, that T.'s 

 inference is premature also with regard to the male; it is likely that vasa efferentia in this young, 

 immature specimen (which T. himself declares to be of immature growth ) were either not formed 

 at all or at all events not in a directly visible way 3). It must appear quite natural that also the 

 external male genitals were quite undeveloped in this specimen; the copulatory appendages were 

 only of a length of 1 3/8 inch, and were far from reaching the end of the fin-membrane (see the fig. 1. c. 

 p. 287). But these copulatory appendages seem always to have shown a q trite similar undeve- 



*) Sir W.Turner evidently lias not been able quite to dismiss his original conception of the evacuation of the ova 

 through the abdominal pores (to which for the rest every parallel would be wanting, as the Cyclostomes have no abdominal 

 pores) ; even in his latest communication (4, 18S5 p. 222) T. says: < But, as it is very doubtful if the entire surface of each ovary 

 could be embraced by the spathe-like canal (i. e. the mouth of the oviduct), a proportion of the ova would probably be shed 

 into the peritoneal cavity, and be evacuated through the abdominal pores . 



-1 Professor Ltitken in: Smaa Bidrag til Selachiernes Naturhistorie. 2. Om Havkalens Forplantning (Vid. Medd. 

 Naturh. Eoren. i Kbhvn. 1S79— So; p. 56) has tried to make it probable that the Greenland Shark should be oviparous, and 

 moreover have soft, shell-less eggs, which is known in no other plagiostome. Among the reasons that might give some 

 countenance to this notion Sir W. Turn er' s anatomical results are quoted. It is quite evident that if T.'s first communication 

 of the want of oviducts had been correct, a deposition of the eggs, and an impregnation of them outside of the body of the 

 female would have been as good as proved; but the later informations from the same author are in my opinion of such a 

 nature, that thev can be used as proofs neither for nor against a deposition of the eggs, but might — connected with my 

 demonstration in the following, that the male Greenland Shark has fully developed copulatory organs — be used as proofs 

 of the eggs, as generally in Sharks, being impregnated in the oviduct. The other reasons for a deposition of the eggs, quoted 

 by Professor L-, viz. the negative one that we have never hitherto got any foetus of the Greenland Shark, and the more posi- 

 tive accounts from several laymen of numerous large eggs, but always in the females, cannot, I think, prove anything either 

 in one or the other direction. Against the first of these reasons may be quoted the equally negative circumstance that we 

 have never found eggs of the Greenland Shark outside the animal neither, and against the second that the large eggs are 

 evidently ovarial eggs still coherent by the thin, distended ovarial stroma; for all informations — also those I have got 

 persouallv from an Icelandic Shark-fisher — state that the large eggs, which are only seen by the flensing, always cohere by 

 thin membranes or the like; but large and soft ovarial eggs, as is well known, are not only found in oviparous, but as well 

 in viviparous Sharks and Ravs. As however the only earlier authors, who state anything at all about the propagation, declare 

 quite positively, that the Greenland Shark is viviparous, viz. besides Otto Fabricius and Faber, who are both cited by 

 Professor Eiitken, also David Cranz, who says in his Historie vou Gronland . 2. Anil. 1770 p. 138: Er bringt gemeinig- 

 lich 4 Junge zugleich zur Welt (from this work the statement is adopted by Couch, from whom Gunther probably has 

 his remark: It is stated to be viviparous, and to produce about four young at a birth [Introd. to the study of Fishes, [880 

 P- 3331 1 — aI1(1 - as moreover the verv nearest relative of the Greenland Shark, the Son/nioits rosiratus of the Mediterranean, 

 is known quite certainly to be viviparous, as also the somewhat more distant relatives, the Scymnus- species and the other 

 Spinaa'da , I, to be sure, think it most probable — I feel tempted to use a stronger expression — that also the Greenland 

 Shark, the other Somu/osas-s-pecies, must be viviparous. 



i.ccording to Semper: Das Urogenitalsystem der Plagiostomen etc. (Arb. Zool. Zoot. Inst. Wiirzburg, 2, 1875) vasa 

 efferentia are in several Sharks already formed in the embryo; but I think it is doubtful whether they can be recognized here 

 without the assistance of the microscope, and it does not appear that Sir W.Turner has used a microscopical examination; 

 but he says that the mesorchium was so transparent that he must have seen a duct, if there had been one. The part of the 

 testis itself, which T. especially examined to trace a possible duct in it, can scarcely contain such a one, as it is evidently 

 the Vorkeimfalte of Semper, i.e. the part where the new ampullae are formed. 



