641 



might have been expected, but that half-hearted attacks, like that of 

 my present critic, would be directed against it, — attacks which, while 

 professing to meet the "main contention", would carefully avoid it 

 — was not to be anticipated. So far as Botany is concerned, I 

 have avoided assuming anything that was not common property of 

 the science. It is true that I have ventured to suggest that in all 

 probability their antithetic alternation would be found to extend, 

 either actually or potentially, much lower in the scale than botanists 

 can at present admit. I have hardly dared hint my belief that con- 

 jugation and spore-formation would, on careful search in low forms, 

 which admittedly have hitherto been insufficiently investigated, be found 

 to exist there, or that some good reason would be found for their 

 absence. 



I had looked for the friendly neutrality of botanists in any 

 struggle on behalf of antithetic alternation, and, notwithstanding the 

 present small affair of outposts, perhaps that neutrality may still be 

 preserved. 



Nachdruck verboten. 



Snr le d^veloppement de la carit^ h^pato-eiitMque 

 chez les AmphlMens. 



Par A. Brächet, Assistant ä I'lnstitut anatomique de l'Universite de Lidge. 



Avec 3 figures. 



A la suite de la publication des etudes de Klaatsch sur la 

 raorphologie du p^ritoine, j'avais entrepris d'etudier le developpement 

 de la cavit6 hepato-ent6rique chez les Amphibiens Urodeles et chez 

 les Mammiferes. Les resultats de ces recherches ont et6 publics dans 

 les Archives de Biologie, T. XIII, paru en 1895. 



Si je reviens aujourd'hui sur cette question, c'est parceque dans un 

 travail qui vient de paraitre dans le Morphologisches Jahrbuch 

 (Bd. XXIII, H. 2), P. Mathes, conteste assez vivement certaines 

 des conclusions que j'avais cru pouvoir tirer. 



Je profite de cette occasion pour ajouter quelques details aux faits 

 que j'avais d6jä signales, et r6pondre, en meme temps, aux critiques 

 formulees par Mathes contre mon travail. 



Ces critiques portent sur les points suivants: 



1°. Les m6sos lateraux droit et gauche, et par suite 



42 



