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The Pseudobranchial and Carotid Arteries in Polypterus. 



By Edward Phelps Allis jr., Menton. 

 With one Figure. 



In a work now in press (Allis, 2) I have attempted, in diagram- 

 matic figures, to show the several manners in which the pseudo" 

 branchial and carotid arteries arise and are disposed in the gnatha- 

 storae fishes. In that work the crossopterigians were not considered, 

 because, the existing descriptions of the vessels in those fishes seeming 

 incomplete, I thought best to wait until I could myself work them out 

 in the adult Polypterus, specimens of which I had, I have however 

 since then received three specimens of Polypterus senegalus, from 75 mm 

 to 83 mm in length, and in one of them, cut in transverse sections, 

 I have traced the vessels here concerned. These three small Polypteri 

 were most kindly procured for me by Dr. R, C. Punnett, of Cam- 

 bridge, England, from the material collected by J. S. Budgett in the 

 Gambia, to whom, as also to Prof. J. Graham Kerr for allowing me 

 to have them, I am greatly indebted. 



The pseudobranchial and carotid arteries of the adult Polypterus 

 have been more or less completely described by Johannes Müller 

 (1846), Hyrtl (1870), Pollard (1892) and Budgett (1901); and Bud- 

 gett (1902) has furthermore given certain details regarding these 

 arteries in a 30 mm Polypterus. As is well known from these several 

 works, the afferent hyoidean and first branchial arteries arise close 

 together from the anterior end of the ventral aorta, and there is, even in 

 Budgett's 30 mm larva, no slightest apparent remnant of an afferent 

 mandibular prolongation of the aorta. This I can confirm, from my 

 specimen, for I can find no trace of an afferent mandibular artery 

 either as a branch of the ventral aorta or as a secondary, ventro- 

 anterior prolongation of the efferent artery of the first branchial arch. 

 There are, however, certain spaces, vascular or lymphoid, immediately 

 in front of the anterior end of the ventral aorta, that may perhaps re- 

 present the greatly degenerated artery of earlier stages. 



The afferent hyoidean artery runs upward in its arch and sup- 



