1^4 THE SALAMANDER 



these latter animals Fritsch (1869) calls the ligament the 'Guberna- 

 culum cordis'. It is, of course, the remains of the dorsal mesocardium 

 and is frequently referred to as the mesocardial ligament. The exten- 

 sive area involved by this pericardio-ventricular connexion in Sala- 

 mandra must be regarded as a very primitive feature. The auricles 

 are free, as is also the whole ventral surface of the heart, except at the 

 anterior end of the truncus arteriosus, at the ductus Cuvieri, and at 

 the post-caval and pulmonary veins. 



The pericardium has also important connexions with the MM. 

 obliquus internus and rectus abdominis, which are discussed on 

 p. 270 in relation to the question of the diaphragm. 



II. BLOOD-VESSELS. 

 I. Historical. 



Funk (i 827) is neither accurate nor detailed regarding the blood- 

 vessels — a situation that Rusconi (1854) made a special point of 

 amending. Rusconi's figures of the aortic arches in both larva and 

 adult are very good and are reproduced by Hoffmann in Bronn's 

 Thierreich. He does not describe the remainder of the arteries in 

 any detail, but he gives some account of the main veins, and is the 

 first to describe the vessel derived from the left vitelline vein which 

 now bears his name, but was called by him the longitudinal gut vein. 

 Jourdain (1859) gives a good description, with figures, of the renal- 

 portal system, but he figures the connexion between the V. iliaca 

 communis and Jacobson's vein wrongly. 



The first investigator to study the vascular system of the Salaman- 

 der apart from the general anatomy was Hochstetter (1888). He 

 gives a very good account of the veins of the abdomen and of the 

 renal-portal system, but does not deal with the details of the cephalic 

 vessels nor with those of the limbs. He recognized the true nature of 

 the post-cardinal veins (Rusconi had called them the veins of the 

 oviduct), and his work on the development of these vessels and of 

 the abdominal vein is too well known to need comment. In 1 894-5 

 Zuckerkandl, in his work on the anatomy and development of the 

 arteries of the fore-arm, deals with Salamandra as a type of Urodeles, 

 but his description is brief. Bethge (1898) supplements Hoch- 

 stetter's account to some extent in a paper entitled 'Das Blutgefass- 

 system von Salamandra maculata, Triton taeniatus, und Spelerpes 

 fuscus'. He is the first to mention the vertebral artery — A. verte- 

 bralis collateralis — and the lateral vein — V. cutanea magna — but 

 on the whole his description is very general. He is more concerned 



