THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HLSTORY. 



No. 45. JULY 1841. 



XXXVIII. — On the Existence of BrancMce in the young Caeci- 

 liee ; and on a Modification and Extension of the Branchial 

 Classification of the Amphibia*. By Johx Hogg, Esq., 

 M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.C.P.S., &c. 



Looking over, in November last, the volume of the ' Comptes 

 Rendus' of the meetings of the Academy of Sciences at Paris 

 for the year 1839, I came to the report of a paper entitled, 

 " Notice historique sur la place assignee aux Cecilies dans 

 la serie zoologique, par M. de Blainville," in uhich (No. 22, 

 at p. 6/3) I read the passage which I have thus translated: — 

 " In the mean time, in 1836, on the opportunity of describing 

 some reptiles which were brought from California by M. P. 

 E. Botta, I gave a characterized analysis of my system of 

 Herpetology and Amphibiology, and I supported the place 

 that I had assigned to the Ccscilia by the curious fact observed 

 by Prof. Miiller of a young Ccecilia in the Museum at Leyden, 

 which was furnished with branchial apertures, 



" 1 839. Although this fact appears not to have been known, 

 any more than, without a doubt, my own labours on this sub- 

 ject were, to Mr. John Hogg, who has just published a long 

 memoir on the Classitication of the Amphibia in Mr. Charles- 

 worth^s ' Magazine of Nat. Hist.' for June [and concluded 

 in the August Number] 1839, it will be there seen that he 

 has also arrived at the same conclusion with us ; that is to 

 say, of making a distinct class of the Batrachians under the 

 name of Amphibia, and a separate order of the Caecilice under 

 the new denomination of Abranchia, because he has selected 

 for his principal consideration the organs of respiration : only 

 that he places them at the commencement, in order to connect 



* [This communication, in its original state, was received by the Editors 

 in the middle of February ; but they retained it until the author's return to 

 London, in order to direct his attention to the papers on the Lepidosiren by 

 M. Milne Edwards and Sir W. Jardine. — Ed.] 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. vii. 2 A 



