160 EDWARD L. RICE 
from the extracolumella to the pterygoid muscle. Of the various 
connections of the columella mentioned in this paragraph I can 
find no suggestion in any stage of Eumeces. 
Two other connections described by various authors are, how- 
ever, conspicuously present—from the insertion plate to the 
processus paroticus and from the processus accessorius posterior 
to the hyoid arch. 
The first of these is probably present in all stages of Eumeces, 
although not clearly recognizable in stage 1 because of the un- 
favorable direction of the sections. In the younger embryos 
processus paroticus and insertion plate are relatively closely 
approximated, and the connection is short; it is also rather thick 
and of indefinite contour. In later stages the band lengthens 
strikingly and becomes strongly fibrous in its structure. From 
the distal end of the processus paroticus it extends downward, 
forward, and outward, under the posterodorsal end of the quad- 
rate (figs. 11, 13, and 14, tend.eat.), and unites with the pars 
superior of the insertion plate (figs. 12 and 15); beyond this 
point its course is very easily traced over the lateral surface of 
the insertion plate, until it gradually disappears near the ex- 
tremity of the long pars inferior. For a part of the course on 
the surface of the insertion plate the band is markedly thickened 
(fig. 16), so as to appear, at first glance, like a nodule of cartilage; 
nowhere, however, does it show the histological structure of 
cartilage. This ‘tendon of the extracolumella’ is carefully de- 
scribed by Versluys (98) for Sphenodon and adult lizards; it 
was lacking only in Amphisbaena among the many lizards 
studied. Gaupp does not describe or figure it in embryonic 
Lacerta. Versluys originally homologized this structure with 
the stapedial muscle, but later (’03) rejected this homology. 
The connection from the processus accessorius posterior of 
the insertion plate to the dorsoposterior end of the hyoid arch 
is of a very different character—a direct continuity, in the 
cartilage, procartilage, or blastema stage, of the tissue of the 
columella and hyoid. This is recognizable in my material only 
in stage 1; here it cannot be questioned. A very careful study 
of the sections shows a perfectly continuous early cartilage or 
