188 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



vestibule attached to the auricle) is returned from the front 

 by the precava, and from the rear by the postcava. The 

 postcava is the largest bloodvessel coming from the rear. 

 Into the liver the blood returns by two main channels , an 

 anterior abdominal vein that traverses the mid -ventral line 

 of the body wall and jumps across the short intervening 

 space of the coelom to enter the liver on its ventral side, and 

 a portal vein that comes from the stomach and succeeding 

 portions of the alimentary canal, x^ 



The special organs of excretion in the salamander are the 

 kidneys, a pair of chocolate-colored bodies lying closely 

 applied to the dorsal wall in the posterior end of the body 

 cavity, broader and thicker behind, and tapering to a 

 slender point in front. From their postero-external angles 

 a pair of very short ducts connects with the cloaca, entering 

 just opposite the mouth of the urinary bladder, into which 

 the discharge of their urine passes for temporary storage. 

 A large vein enters each kidney from the rear, breaks up into 

 fine branchlets, and is reformed on the opposite internal 

 side, where, by confluence of emerging branchlets, the 

 postcava is formed. 



The reproductive organs lie in the midst of the body 

 cavity, a single pair just ventral to the pointed anterior ends 

 of the kidneys, and they bear usually a considerable 

 development of fat in the form of yellowish finger-like 

 processes (fig. 116.). The salamander being unisexual, 

 they are spermaries (testes) in the male and ovaries 

 in the female. The spermaries are oval yellowish 

 bodies, which discharge their sperms through a number 

 of fine ducts that penetrate the substance of the kidney 

 and emerge on the opposite side to join the ureter, and 

 thence reach the cloaca. The ovaries are large mem- 

 branous, crumpled organs in whose walls the eggs may be 

 seen developing, opaque and white at first, acquiring 



