46 ME. SWALE VINCENT ON THE 



work he gives a description of the suprarenals in the Sturgeon, and finds them to be 

 composed of " an aggregation of fat-globules." He states that they are always placed 

 on the walls of the blood-vessels. But he changes his view entirely on the subject of 

 the suprarenals in cartilaginous fishes. He now considers that both the paired bodies 

 in connection with the sympathetic ganglia and the " ochre-yellow stripes " behind the 

 kidney belong to the same system and constitute the suprarenal capsules in this order 

 of fishes. 



Stannius, in a later edition (22), seems to have recognized both kinds of bodies. 

 Balfour says his description is "not quite intelligible." This I consider to be quite a 

 euphemism. I have found the description totally incomprehensible as applied to the 

 Elasmob ranch s. On the other hand he gives a very excellent account of the supra- 

 renals in Teleosts. He states that in the Pike these bodies have been found studded 

 in the kidney from the middle to the tail-end, and believes them to be absent in Clupea 

 harengus and Ammodytes tobianus. 



The next important step in advance was made by Semper (19) in 1875, who 

 emphasizes the segmental arrangement of the suprarenals, and believes them to be the 

 same kind of structure as the interrenal. In fact he appears to believe that there 

 exists a direct anatomical continuity between them. " Hier freilich gehen sie bei 

 manchen Formen (Bochen, Chimcera, Scymnus, Acanthias, Mustelus, etc.), also 

 wahrscheinlich wohl bei den meisten Plagiostomen in einen bald weissen, bald 

 hell- oder dunkel-gelben Korper fiber, welcher, zwischen den Enden der beiden Nieren 

 liegend, dicht an der einfachen Caudalvene sitzt." 



F. M. Balfour (1) in 1878 has also dealt with this subject with considerable care in 

 his monograph on Elasmobranch Fishes. He gives an account of the history up to 

 date, and it is to him we owe the term " interrenal " as applied to the unpaired body 

 in Scyllium. He expresses his opinion that there is very probably " a third kind of 

 body in connection with the kidney," and regrets he could not settle the point with 

 fresh specimens. He refers to Stannius's description as possibly indicating a third 

 structure ; but, so far as I could understand this author, he seems to allude to broken-off 

 or scattered portions of the interrenal, which, as we shall see later on, are frequently 

 found. The "lymphoid masses" which Balfour mentions in connection with the 

 larger vessels of the kidney do not appear to me to be of any importance in connection 

 with this subject, as lymphoid tissue is very common in all fishes both in and 

 surrounding the renal organs. 



Balfour's researches were both anatomical and developmental. With the latter I 

 shall not concern myself, but the former must be dealt with in some detail. He 

 describes the general anatomical relations of both " supra- " and " inter-"renals, and 

 then gives an account of their histology, which suffers from the fact that he had only 

 been able to obtain specimens preserved in chromic acid. He lays great stress on the 

 relations between the paired suprarenals and the sympathetic nervous system, but 

 states that there is a " much smaller ganglionic development " in connection with the 



