Volume XIV. June, 1808. Number 2. 
JOURNAL 
OF 
MORPHOLOGY. 
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF LIMB-MUSCLES IN AMPHIBIA. 
ESTHER F. BYRNES. 
THE muscles in the fins of elasmobranchs develop from 
muscle-buds which are formed from the ventral edges of the 
myotomes. Until very recently this method of formation of 
limb-muscles was supposed to occur not only in the different 
groups of fishes, where muscle-buds are best developed, but also 
in the higher groups of vertebrates. 
Muscle-buds have been shown to occur among fishes, in the 
teleosts as well as in the elasmobranchs; and among the higher 
vertebrates strong evidence of the presence of muscle-buds in 
the Lacertilia! has been given by Van Bemmelen? and Mollier.® 
In the remaining groups, however, the evidence in regard to 
the presence of muscle-buds is far from being conclusive. 
Another method of formation of limb-muscles has been 
described by Paterson,‘ and still more recently by Harrison.® 
1 According to Corning, the ventral myotome-processes in the anterior limb- 
region in the lizard do not go into the limbs as muscle-buds. Corning believes 
that the so-called “muscle-buds ” are only those ventral myotome-processes which 
give rise to the muscles of the tongue. 
2 Anat. Anz., Bd. 4, 1889. 4 Quar. Journ. Micr. Sci.. Vol. xxviii, 1887. 
8 Anat. Hefte, 1895. & Archiv f. micr. Anat., Bd. 46, 3, 1895. 
