354 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 



cular tribe of fishes, in which the organs of both sexes are 

 always present in the same individual. 



Having been unsuccessful in obtaining any male lam- 

 priesj although he got what were considered as females in 

 abundance, Sir EVEUARD began to suspect, that the indi- 

 viduals of the species were hermaphrodites, and his obser- 

 vations on these fish, at different periods, justified his con- 

 jectures *. 



* " I found upon examination, that the two glandular bodies projecting 

 into the belly, one on each side of the ovarium, which have always been 

 supposed to be the kidneys, varied very much in size and appearance at the 

 beginning and end of the season. When the ova are so small that the ani- 

 mal is reputed to be a male, these glandular bodies, and the black substance 

 upon which they lie, appear to form one mass, and the duct upon the ante- 

 rior part is thin and almost transparent, containing a fluid equally so ; but, in 

 the end of May, when the ova increase in size, these glandular bodies become 

 larger, more turgid, and have a distinct line of separation between them 

 and the black substance behind ; their structure is more developed, being 

 evidently composed of tubuli running in a transverse direction, and the ducts 

 leading from them are thicker in their coats, and larger in size. , 



" On the 5th of June, the ova were found to be of the full size ; and a 

 small transparent speck, not before to be observed, was seen in each ; at this 

 time, the tubular structure had an increased breadth, and the duct going 

 from it contained a ropy fluid, which, when examined in the field of the 

 microscope, was found to be composed of small globules in a transparent 

 fluid. On the 9th of June, neither the ova nor the tubular structure had 

 undergone any change. On the llth of June, the ova were of the same 

 size, but the slightest force detached them from the ovarium ; the tubular 

 structure had increased still more in size, the fluid in the ducts was thicker, 

 more ropy, and when water was added to it in the field of the microscope, 

 it coagulated, and what was before made up of globules, had now the ap- 

 pearance of flakes. The ova do not pass out at an excretory duct as in 

 fishes, but drop from the cells in the ovarium in which they were formed, 

 into the cavity of the abdomen, and escape by two small apertures at the 

 lower part of that cavity, into a tube common to them and to the semen in 

 which they are impregnated." " In the lampern or pride, and in the gas- 

 trobranchus crecus, a similar structure is observable." Phil. Trans. A. D. 

 1815, Part II. p. 266. 



