312 Description of Menobranchus punctatus. 
ness; they terminate posteriorly in conical tips, and anteriorly 
open by a common trachea into the cesophagus ;_ when in- 
flated about 0.16 of an inch in diameter, and two inches in 
length ; of the same longitudinal extent as the liver. Heart 
0.16 of an inch in length, ovoid, situated anteriorly to the fore 
legs, in a position about midway between the anterior part of 
the cervical fold and a line joining the attachments of the 
fore legs. Blood corpuscles with diameters in the ratio of 
about five to four, the longer about 0.002 of an inch ; nucleus 
about half those dimensions. Dr. Ravenel communicated the 
following observations. The branchial artery arises from the 
ventricle by a single trunk having a bulbus aorticus, and 
divides into two branches to supply the branchiz on each 
Side; it is worthy of remark, that no trunk of the branchial 
artery runs to the lungs, these being supplied from the aorta. 
The parietes and septa of the lungs are furnished with striated 
muscular fibre or voluntary muscles, as is the case in all ani- 
mals where the branchie and lungs coexist. 
SKELETON. Cranium with the bones united. Spinal 
column, with tail included, consisting of thirty-six vertebre, 
the twenty-second being the last lumbar, and the twenty- 
third the first of the fourteen caudal vertebra. Posterior 
extremities in some cases abnormally attached ; in the indi- 
vidual dissected by Dr. Ravenel the right ilium: was attached 
to the nineteenth vertebra, and the left to the twentieth ; in 
the one dissected by myself the left ilium was attached to the 
nineteenth, and the right to the twentieth; and in a third 
individual, preserved in alcohol, which was partially dissected 
to examine this point, both ilia were attached to the nineteenth 
vertebra. Scapule cartilaginous throughout nearly the whole 
extent, and attached opposite the third vertebra. No ves- 
tiges of ribs. Superior maxilla movable. 
. Rrwanks. The first individual obtained was discovered by 
Mr. Augustus Shoolbred, on the plantation of his father, Dr. 
Shoolbred, on the South Santee River, S. C., a few miles 
