of ageneiosids is his description and illustration of the gonads in A. militaris ( = A. 

 valenciennesi). In that account, he described the internal anatomy as consisting of 

 an encapsulated swimbladder, the kidney, a long duct leading to the urinary bladder, 

 and an unpaired medial organ filled internally with granular material, which Kner 

 called the ovary. His identification of the kidney and urinary bladder appears to 

 have been correct, based on the accompanying illustration (Kner 1858a; plate 9, fig. 

 27b). However, identification of the organ that he called an ovary is uncertain. The 

 structure appears as a single, large sac, and resembles an ovary. The fact that Kner 

 (1858a) referred to it as unpaired is especially puzzling, since the ovaries of 

 ageneiosids are paired except near their posterior end. Furthermore, Kner (1858a) 

 described the ovaries and the testes in^. brevifilis as unpaired, so he was familiar 

 with the normal, nonreproductive appearance of both gonads. Moreover, his 

 description of ^. militaris is apparently based entirely on nuptial males, which, had 

 Kner examined them internally, would have been found to have enormously 

 swollen, lobulated testes. I believe that one of the following two possibilities is the 

 most likely explanation to account for the discrepancies in Kner's (1858a) 

 descriptions. First, the illustration of the reproductive system may have been based 

 on a female, and the structure identified by Kner was mdeed an ovary, with perhaps 

 the other ovary being missing. This possibility conflicts with Kner's belief that the 

 name^. militaris applied only to those specimens with the external dimorphic 

 structures of nuptial males. The second possibility is that Kner may have mistaken 

 the posterior segment of the testes as an ovary. In nuptial males, the posterior 

 segment is unpaired, medial, and becomes swollen, thus superficially resembling an 

 ovary. However, the anterior lobes of the testes also become greatly swollen, and it 

 seems unlikely that Kner would have overiooked these. Kner apparently based his 

 description of the reproductive system on a single specimen that had been preserved 

 for some time in the Kaiserliche Museum. One is left to speculate that, perhaps, if 

 that specimen was a nuptial male, the anterior lobes of the testes had been damaged 



■ 



