354 Mr. J. Hogg on the Existence of 



them with the Ophidians, instead of terminating the class by 

 them*/' 



Here it was that I received the first intimation of Prof. J. 

 Miiller's discovery of branchial apertures in a young Caecilia ; 

 and on a further perusal, I found that this historical notice 

 by M. de Blainville was both in answer to, and continuation of^ 

 M. DumeriFs ' Memoire sur la classification et la structure 

 des Ophiosomes ou Ceciloides, famille de Reptiles qui parti- 

 cipent des Ophidiens et des Batraciens, relativement a la forme 

 et a Porganisation/ which had been read at a previous meet- 

 ing of the Academy, and the report of which is inserted in a 

 former number (20) of the same volume of the ' Comptes 

 Rendus' (p. 581). 



M. Dumeril has given a brief description of this highly in- 

 teresting discovery ; but as this is abridged from a part only 

 of Prof. J. Miiller's own account as published in Oken's ^ Isis' 

 for 1831, p. 71O5 and supposing that the whole of so distin- 

 guished an anatomist's paper on the subject — which also com- 

 prises his classification of the Amphibia — will be received with 

 satisfaction, since it is published in a foreign work not fre- 

 quently to be met with in England, I make no apology for 

 giving a translation of the whole from the original German. 



" Branchial apertures discovered in a young Caecilia hypo- 

 cyanea, in the Museum of Natural History at Leyden^ by 

 Prof. John Miiller. 



" In the spring of the year 1831 I visited the great Museum 

 of Zoology and Anatomy at Ley den, where the particular kind- 

 ness of MM. Temminck, Van der Hoeven, Sandifort, Brors, 

 Schlegel, and Dr. Haan, made my short stay highly profitable 

 and useful. On an examination of the Cacilice which are 

 preserved in that exceedingly rich Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, I discovered, in quite a young Ccecilia hypocyanea, upon 

 each side of the neck, some lines from the extremity of the 

 fissure of the mouth, an aperture a line in length. This open- 

 ing is in length somewhat more than in height ; it is placed 

 in the yellow band which marks the sides of the Cmcilia hy- 

 pocyanea, and this yellow band is just there much wider. The 

 edge of the aperture is sharp ; in its interior black fringes were 

 visible^ which appear fixed to the horns of the tongue-bones 

 or branchial arcs, but they did not project out of the aperture. 

 The apertures themselves continue in more open communica- 

 tion with the cavity of the mouth. This young Cacilia, which, 



* Comptes Rendus des Seances de I'Acad^mie des Sciences, torn. ix. 

 No 22. 2e Semestre. 1839. 



