REPRODUOTIVE ELEMENTS [N MYXINE GLUTINOSA. 49 



On the Structure and Development of the Repro- 

 ductive Elements in Myxine glutinosa, L. 



By 



J. T. Gunningbain, B.A.» 



Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Superintendent of the Scottish 

 Marine Station. 



With Plates VI and VII. 



Historical. — The first zoologist who investigated the minute 

 structure of the generative organs and their products in the 

 Myxinoida was Johannes Miiller. Between the years 1835 and 

 1845 the great Berlin naturalist published a monograph on the 

 'Comparative Anatomy of the Myxiuoids/ the parts of which 

 were first read before the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and 

 subsequently published separately in three folio volumes. The 

 description of the reproductive system occurs in the last volume^ 

 published in 1845 ; the contents of this volume were com- 

 municated to the Academy in ]842. The description is brief, 

 but as far as it goes I have found it in most respects correct. 

 I shall here quote it almost completely. 



" The sexual organs hang in a long peritoneal fold on the 

 right side of the mesentery. The structure in Bdellostoma 

 and Myxine is exactly the same. The structure in the two 

 sexes is also completely similar, and it is very difficult to dis- 

 tinguish testis and ovary. 



*' The testes consist of a number of round and roundish 

 long grains (korner), which resemble the eggs; each has an 

 external skin like the egg skin, and a content somewhat similar 



VOL. XXVII, PART 1. NEW SER. 4) 



