132 prof. huxley on the oviducts of osmerus. [mar. 20, 

 Summary of British Species. 



1, Contributions to Morphology. Ichthyopsida. — No. 3. 

 On the Oviducts of Osmerus ; with Remarks on the 

 Relations of the Teleostean with the Ganoid Fishes. 

 By Prof. Huxley, F.R.S. 



[Eeceived March 9, 1883.] 



Nearly sixty years ago, one of the most accurate and prolific of 

 modern anatoaiisls and embryologists, Rathke, publislied a memoir 

 on the alimentary canal and the reproductive organs of fishes ^ which 

 is not the least valuable of its author's numerous and weighty con- 

 tributions to science. At p. 122 Rathke writes : — "In certaiu fishes 

 the oviducts liave eutirely disappeared ; this is the case in the Eel, 

 m the Sturgeon^, in Cobitis tceniu, and ia the Lamprey. In others, 

 however, such as the higher kinds of Salmonuids, there extends back, 

 behind each ovary, a narrow band which may be regarded as the 

 remains of an oviduct. In all these fishes, therefore, the central 

 abdoiiiiiial cavity must take the place of the oviduct, as it receives 

 the eggs when they are detached, and allows them to make their 

 exit by a single opening at its posterior extremity. 



' H. Rathke, " Ueber den Darmkaual und die Zeugungsorgane der Fische," 

 Sohrifteu der naturforsohenden G-esellscbaft zu Danzig, Heft iii. Band 24. 



- Rathke, taking the structure of ordinary o.sseous fish as his standard, says 

 justly enough that the " oviducts [sucli as these iish possess] have disappeared " 

 in the Sturgeon. In Cobitis barhatula the single ovary has an o\iduct of 1;ho 

 same character as in other Cyprinoid fishes. I have not examined C. tania, 

 about which, in other parts of his memoir, Rathke's statements are full and 

 precise. 



