436 Wyman's Observations on 
half to nine and a half inches in length, the females being 
much longer than the males. 
I. The smallest female measured three and a half inches 
in length, but on careful examination no traces of an ovary 
were discovered ; its development did not appear to have 
commenced as yet. hd 
IL. The next specimen measured seven inches in length, 
and the ovary was in a state of gestation; the fcetuses, four 
or five in number, measured but five-eighths of an inch. The 
ovary appeared single externally ; was invested with perito- 
neum, which was supported by a more firm but thin mem- 
brane of condensed areolar tissue; on cutting through this, 
the interior was found filled with sacs corresponding in num- 
ber to the foetuses, and united to each other and the ovarian 
walls by a very loose areolar tissue. ‘They had no communi- 
cation of any kind with each other. With the aid of the 
point of a needle the sacs were easily detached and removed 
entire with the inclosed fœtus; the envelope was much larger 
than was necessary to hold the embryo, and the space between 
the two was filled with a fluid, a portion of which (albumen ?) 
had been coagulated by the action of the alcohol. In each 
instance it was ascertained that the young had no connection 
whatever, vascular or otherwise, with the walls of the sac 
which inclosed it. 
The external characters of the embryo, (Pl. 17, Fig. 5,) 
even at this early stage, as regards its general form and the 
fins, resemble those of the adult; but no longitudinal black 
bands were yet visible on the sides ; the eye had not acquired 
the prominence of the adult, the cornea was not divided by 2 
transverse band, and the pupil existed in the form of an oval, 
with its long diameter in a vertical direction, but the sides of 
the iris had just commenced extending towards the centre 1M 
order to form the two laminæ, which, in the adult, give e 
pupilits singular shape. The umbilical sac forms a spherot 
mass about one fourth of an inch in diameter, and is " 
ciently transparent to allow the folds of the intestine which fil 
