2 ON THE APPENDICES GENITALES iCEASPERSi IN THE GREENLAND SHARK. 



its biological conditions are unknown, as the same thing may be said of many common species of 

 fishes on our own coasts; but it seems more remarkable that we do not even know for certain whether 

 the Greenland Shark is viviparous or oviparous, and that several features of the anatomical structure 

 of the animal are unknown or only deficiently known. Although this species of Sharks is rather 

 frequently found on the more populated European coasts — also on ours -- and more than once has 

 come into the hands of naturalists, even anatomists, we are thus far from being perfectly acquainted 

 with the structure of its urinary and reproductive organs. 



The facts which have in later years been brought forth as to the latter — and upon the whole 

 concerning the "viscera of the Greenland Shark -- are due to Sir William Turner, who has exa- 

 mined several specimens from British coasts and has given his results in The Journal of Anatomy and 

 Physiology '). 



As to the female the first of these communications (i) showed the surprising result that 

 oviducts were wanting. Consequently the Greenland Shark would necessarily be oviparous, and the 

 ova, detached from the ovary, would presumably leave the abdominal cavity through the abdominal 

 pores to be impregnated outside the mother. That the ovaries were immature in both the examined 

 animals of a respective length of n ft. 8 inches and 8 1 2 ft. is however evident from the description. 

 Later (3) the first statement is corrected: oviducts 2 ) are found, opening as usual in the Sharks with wide, 

 fumielshaped, closely united mouths before the liver, and running along the lower side of the kidneys 

 to the cloaca; in the examined specimen of 7 feet length the} - were about as thick as a goosequill; 

 the ovaries were quite immature. Still later (4) these parts are described in a somewhat more deve- 

 loped state in a Greenland Shark n ft. 6 in. long; the diameter of the oviduct was only 3/g inch 

 (about 1 ctm.); the ovaries were quite immature. In none of these communications is shown, whether 

 any shell gland , any indication of an uterus, indications of folds of the mucous membrane or the 

 like were found. To judge from the fact of these structures not being mentioned, that nothing of 

 the kind is found, I do not think justifiable; a shell-gland for inst is generally always found in 

 Sharks, whether they be oviparous or viviparous; more probablv these structures on account of the 

 immature state of the animals have not been prominent, and therefore have not been noticed. For that 

 all the females examined by Sir W. Turner have been immature and young animals admits, I think, 

 of no doubt. The fact is that we know to a certainty that the mature ovarial eggs are about as large 

 as goose-eggs, but the largest mentioned by Sir YV. Turner were only of the size of shot or at most 

 of small bullets, and we know that the Greenland Shark grows to a still more considerable size than 

 11 ft. 8 in.; therefore if the oviducts showed so small a size and besides (presumably) so simple a 

 shape, it is only, what might be expected in younger individuals 3), and I see 110 reason at all to 



'i n A Contribution to the Visceral Anatomy of the Greenland Shark (Laemargus borealis). L. c. 7, 1873, p. 233. 

 2' Additional observations on the Anatomy of the Greenl. Shark. L. c. 8, 1S74, p. 285. 31 Note on the Oviducts of the Greenl. 

 Shark. L. c. 12, 1878, p. 604. 4 Additional Note on the Oviducts etc. L. c. 19, 1SS5, p. 221. 



J The oviducts had already been seen in 1847 by Kneeland iBoston Journ. Nat. Hist. 5, p. 479, 485) in a specimen 

 of the length of 7 ft. 5 in.; the ovaries were immature. The first statement by Sir W.Turner has been repeated by 

 Fiirbringer: Zur vergl. Anat. u. Eutwiekelungsgesch. der Excretionsorgane der Vertebraten iMorphol. Jahrb. 4, 187S1 p. 53, 83; 

 it is found as late as in Guido Schneider: Ueber die Entw. der Geuitalcauale bei Cobitis taenia L,- und Phoxinus Icevis 

 Ag. 1 Mem. Ac. Imp. d. Sc. de St. Petersbourg [Sj T 2, 18951 p. 9. 



3) Comp. Joh. Miiller: Untersuchungen iiber die Eingeweide der Fische, Schluss der vergleicheude Anatomie der 

 Myxinoiden Abhdl. K. Ac. Wiss. Berlin 1843 [1845]), p. 133, 134. 



