XV REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS 405 
female, seems to be a duct sui generis and to have no con- 
nexion whatever with the kidney system (Fig. 230, E). In the 
Salmonidae, Anguillidae, Galaxiidae, Hyodontidae, Notopteridae, 
and Osteoglossidae, and also in Misgurnus, the oviducts lose 
their continuity with ovaries and degenerate to an extent which 
differs greatly in different families. Thus in some Salmonidae, 
as in the Smelt (Osmerus eperlanus),’ the oviducts end anteriorly 
in wide funnel-lke coelomic apertures after the fashion of 
Miillerian ducts, and do not embrace the ovaries: hence the 
ovaries are naked and not cystoarian, and their ducts are 
not peritoneal tubes but “peritoneal funnels” (Fig. 230, F). 
In other Salmonidae and in the Anguillidae the oviducts appear 
to have so far degenerated that they are represented either by a 
pair of very short funnels or by a pair of genital pores, which, as 
in the Salmon, have a common external aperture behind the anus 
and in front of the single orifice of the united archinephric ducts 
(Fig. 253, A). In all such instances the eggs are set free from 
the ovaries into the coelom, from whence they escape through 
the peritoneal funnels or genital pores. In the Eels the male 
gonoducts also degenerate, and, losing all connexion with the 
testes, they become reduced to genital pores as in the female. 
The Holocephali and probably the Dipnoi conform to the 
Elasmobranch type in the nature of their male and female gono- 
ducts. In the Crossopterygii * each testis has its own proper duct, 
which has no connexion with the kidney system and apparently 
belongs to the Teleostean type, while the oviduct, which is almost 
certainly not a Miillerian duct, is probably a peritoneal funnel. 
On the other hand, the Chondrostei and the Holostei are in the 
interesting transitional condition of possessing male ducts of 
the Elasmobranch type and female ducts of the Teleostean type, 
the latter being either ducts directly continuous with the ovaries, 
as in Lepidosteus, or of the nature of peritoneal funnels, as in 
Acipenser, Polyodon, and Amia (Fig. 230, E and F). 
How far the distinction between the two types of gonoduct 
holds good in the case of the male is not quite clear, and it has 
recently been argued that the Dipnoi offer a connecting link 
between the two.” 
1 Huxley, P.Z.S. 1883, p. 132. 
2 Budgett, Trans. Zool. Soc. xv. 1901, p. 823; xvi. 1902, p. 315. 
’ Graham Kerr, P.Z.S. 1901, p. 484; Proc. Phil. Soc. Cambridge, xi. Pt. v. 
1902, p. 329. 
