122 RITTER 



either now or at some earlier time, of such an extension of this 

 organ. 



In the first place, I present the results of my own observa- 

 tions. In a new species of Dolichoglossiis which I am naming 

 D. intermedms^ from the California coast, I find a condition of 

 the supra-crural esophageal wall that I can interpret in no other 

 way so satisfactorily as by supposing that it retains a strong rem- 

 iniscence of the esophageal notochord. The lateral pockets 

 and median ridge which so distinctly characterize the organ in 

 Harrimania are absent. The supra-crural portion of the eso- 

 phageal wall is, however, considerably broader than the thick- 

 ness of the esophagus immediately, and for some distance, ven- 

 tral to the crura. Furthermore, the wall is here thicker by a 

 third or more than it is elsewhere in its circumference. But the 

 most significant thing about it is its histological character. 

 Fig. 9 represents a section of the dorsal half of the esophagus 

 of this animal taken some distance behind the origin of the 

 skeletal crura. The non-nucleated vacuolar condition of the 

 cells in the supra-crural epithelium as compared with the infra- 

 crural, is seen. I must say, furthermore, that the difference is 

 in reality considerably more marked in some sections than in 

 the one here figured. In some places the nuclei, excepting for 

 a thin stratum at the inner surface of the epithelium, are almost 

 wholly wanting, and the vacuolated condition is more pro- 

 nounced. This structure is most distinct anteriorly, and gradu- 

 ally disappears posteriorly, the epithelium taking on, by the 

 time the extreme posterior limit of the collar is reached, th^ 

 characters of the esophageal wall in general. There is very 

 little or nothing in the epibranchial band of Dolichoglossiis in- 

 termedins, so far as I am able to determine from the material at 

 hand, to suggest its notochordal aflinities. 



Without doubt the esophageal notochord exists in Balano- 

 glossus kuffferi. Spengel shows it clearly in PI. XV, figs. 29 

 and 44, of his monograph. The scant attention which he gives 

 it compels me, however, to suppose that its characters, par- 

 ticularly its histological ones, are much less clearly ex- 

 pressed here than in Harrimania. I should expect that it is 

 present in D. canadensis also, but Spengel's few and poorly 



