PROG hE DLN Gs 
THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, 
SESSION, 1884. 
ON THE SKIN AND 
CUTANEOUS SENSE ORGANS OF AM/URUS. 
BY PROF, R. RAMSAY WRIGHT, TORONTO. 
[Read before the Canadian Institute, January the 12th, 1884. ] 
The contribution contained in the following pages to the know- 
ledge of the skin and its sense-organs, in one of the commonest of 
North American Siluroids (Amiurus catus), may be regarded as an 
extension to this species of the results obtained by various enquirers! 
as to these structures in different European Teleosts. No new facts 
of great importance are recorded, except in relation to certain struc- 
tures which are apparently comparable to the nerve-sacs of the 
Ganoids. The description is chiefly based on sections from skin har- 
dened in chromic acid in the manner employed by Pfitzner? in his 
study of the epidermis in Amphibia. Far from complete as a histologi- 
cal study, the account will serve to indicate the chief gaps which exist 
in our knowledge of the organs concerned, with regard, ¢.g., to the 
development and function of the ‘“ clavate” cells, the mode of ter- 
mination of the nerves in the ordinary epithelium, as well as in the 
neuro-epithelium of the sense organs, &c. The species will commend 
itself to American Histologists for the investigation of these ques- 
tions, not only on account of its ready accessibility and the ease 
1 Especially Leydig. 
“Ueber die Hautdecke and Hautsinnesorgane der Fische.” Halle, 1879. 
2 Morphol. Jahrb. VI., 475. 
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