82 ALLEN 



History. Since looking up the literature for my recent 

 paper on the lymphatics of Scorp&nichthys 1 several very in- 

 teresting papers by Neuville, 2 Vialleton, 3 and Jos-sifoo 4 have 

 been received. 



Ever since the subcutaneous vessels have been studied there 

 has been a merry war on as to whether they were lymphatics or 

 veins, but so far as I am aware this controversy has been con- 

 fined to the Selachians. No one to my knowledge has described 

 these vessels in the Teleostomi as veins. In the Cyclostomi 

 Miiller (15, 5 p. 18) describes an abdominal lymphatic trunk in 

 Myxine as running along beneath the chorda dorsalis, above the 

 aorta. Throughout the body cavity it receives the intercostals 

 and the visceral vessels. Anterior to the body cavity the trunk 

 divides, each fork following the corresponding row of gills. 

 No connection, however, with the venous system was estab- 

 lished. Jackson, in his work on the circulation of Bdellos- 

 toma* (p. 35), observed a marked tendency for the injecting 

 mass to escape from the blood vessels to the subdermal lym- 

 phatic spaces of the caudal region and the peri-branchial spaces 

 about the gill pouches! Vialleton 7 (pp. 308-318), under the 

 head of espaces sereux inter stitiels, gives an extended and most 

 interesting account of these peri-branchial spaces in Petromyzon 

 planeri and Ammocaetes. It seems that the older writers, as 

 Robin, Milne-Edwards, Nestler, Vogt and Yung, and Schneider, 

 regarded these spaces as blood cavities on account of their con- 

 nection with the interior jugular, and the fact that Schneider 



1 " Distribution of the Lymphatics in the Head, and in the Dorsal, Pectoral, 

 and Ventral Fins of Scorpcenichthys ntarmoratus" Proceedings of the Wash- 

 ington Academy of Sciences, VIII, 1906, pp. 41-90. 



2 H. Neuville, " Contribution a 1'etude de la vascularisation intestinale chez 

 les Cyclostomes et les Selachiens." Annales des Sciences naturelles. 1901. 



3 L. Vialleton, " Les lymphatiques du tube digestif de la Torpille (Torpedo 

 marmorata)." Archives d' anatomie microscopique. 1902. 



4 S. M. Jossifoo, "Sur les voies principales et les organes de propulsion de la 

 lymphe chez certains Poissons." Arch. d'Anat. Micr. 1906. 



5 All bibliographical numbers in parentheses refer to a list of literature in a 

 previous paper. See footnote Jk 



6 C. M. Jackson, "An Investigation of the Vascular System of Bdellostoma 

 dombeyi." Bulletin of University of Cincinnati. No. 5. 1901. 



7 L. Vialleton, "Etude sur le coeur des lamproies. " Archives d'^anatomie 

 microscopique. 1903. 



