98 Bashford Dean Memorial Volume 



In another place he wrote: 



In the night of 25th Nov. Kuma went out for longlining to collect Bdellostoma, and got 

 two masses of eggs, and 102 individuals. At this number he said he stopped letting down his 

 lines again. Early in the morning (26th Nov.) I measured the length of the fish and Bun 

 noted down. 



G. C. Price (1896.1), of Stanford University, California, made the first contribution 

 to our knowledge of the embryology of the Myxinoidea. From a few embryos of Bdellos- 

 toma stouti, collected at Pacific Grove, California, and representing but three stages of 

 development. Price described some phases in the development of the excretory system. 

 Later (1904), having succeeded in obtaining more embryos, he was able to make a more 

 extensive study of the ontogeny of the excretory system. As a result of his investigations 

 Price concluded that the entire excretory organ develops like the pronephros of other 

 vertebrates; that a very small anterior part remains a pronephros in the adult, but the long, 

 segmental posterior portion becomes transformed into a mesonephros before the definitive 

 condition is reached. Price states: 



If the view above expressed be correct, the mesonephros of the Myxinoids is primitive 

 in a much more fundamental sense than has hitherto been supposed, and the natural inference 

 would be that it represents the ancestral condition, from which the mesonephros of other 

 vertebrates has been derived. ... I should like to say, however, that embryology teaches 

 that the excretory system of the Myxinoids is not only more primitive, but much more primi- 

 tive than that of any other known vertebrate except Arn^hioxus. 



Dean (1899) made the next contribution to our knowledge of the developmental 

 history of a myxinoid. He gave a very excellent description of the general embryology of 

 Bdellostoma stouti from segmentation stages to hatching, "based upon material collected in 

 the Bay of Monterey, California, mainly during the months of August and September, 

 1896." As to evidences of relationships furnished by embryology he concluded that "the 

 Myxinoids are not to be looked upon as forms which have become greatly degenerate," 

 and that the presence in the embryos of a transversely directed mouth and the mode of 

 origin of the barbels around the mouth indicate clearly that Bdellostoma belongs to the 

 Gnathostomes. 



During the summer of 1896, while Dean was collecting embryos of Bdellostoma stouti 

 at Pacific Grove, California, Fran? Doflein (1898, 1899), then of Miinchen University, 

 Germany, was also at Pacific Grove and obtained some embryos of Bdellostoma from the 

 same fisherman who was collecting embryos for Dean. Professor Carl von Kupffer, of 



