SEXUAL CHARACTERS — ELASMOBRANCH FISHES 



209 



(figs. 9 and 10, /), or possibly by a fused rhipidion. This is the 

 first recorded case in which a closed tubular passage is formed 

 in the claspers by actual fusion. No denticles nor accessory 

 structures are present on these claspers ; neither, as far as I can at 

 present ascertain, is there any siphon or gland to be found in 

 connection with them. 



As in Chimaera, the anterior claspers can each be retracted 

 into a sht-like pouch which is longitudinal, or parallel to the 

 animal's axis, not transverse as in Chimaera; thus in figure 9 



H- 



Cav. 



Fig. 10 Oallorhynchus antarcticus, the right posterior clasper unrolled. 

 Cav., position of cavity at proximal end of clasper tube;/., fused portion of clas- 

 per tube. 



the clasper on the (observer's) left is partly protruded, while 

 that on the right is completely withdrawn. The curious anterior 

 claspers are extraordinarly complicated, and, the pouch having 

 been dissected away, the relations between the various parts 

 are shown in figure 11 in two positions. Fundamentally there 

 is the grappler not unlike that of Chimaera, a spoon-shaped 

 cartilaginous structure, slightly concave, without a serrate 

 border, but covered on its anterior convex face with complicated 

 dental tubercles, a type \\dth five cusps, the coronillae (fig. 12). 

 On the outer side of the grappler are two soft, sUghtly fimbriated 

 expansions, apparently outgrowths of the walls of the pouch, 



