RECORDS OF ilEETIXGf^ 399 



Lawrence Martin, Alaskax Mouxtaixs axd Glacikrs jx Uklatiox 



TO E AIL WAY EOUTES. 



The Section then adjourned. 



A. B. Pacini, 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF BIOLOGY 



8 February, 1915 



Section met at 8 :15 p. m., A 'ice-President Eaymond C. Osburn presid- 

 ing. 



The following programme was then offered : 



G, S. Huntington, Some Further Coxsideratioxs upox the Struc- 

 ture OF THE Vertebrate Lung. 

 H. von W. Schulte, Some Oxtogexetic Variaxts of the Humax 



KlDXTi:Y. 



Alfred J. Brown, Phylogexetic Eelatioxs of the Pelvic Girdle 



IX' Mammals. 



Summary of Papers 



Professor Huntington, continuing the report made during tlie ])revious 

 year upon the collection of preparations of the Inngs of vertebrates, in the 

 Morphological Laboratory of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 

 illustrated many types of vertebrate lungs, especially among the reptiles 

 and mammals, and said in abstract : 



It is, of course, not only unnecessary, l)ut quite inadmissible, to suppose 

 that extant reptilian types, if sufficiently determined, would yield an 

 unbroken and closely graded series of pulmonary types leading directly 

 to the mammalian lung. All our evidence, comparative and ontogenetic, 

 speaks to the contrary, and suggests that the pro-mammalian lung de- 

 bouched from a reptilian type corresponding about to the simpler lacer- 

 tilian lung of to-day, or at most advanced to tlie stage found in the more 

 primitive modern paludal and littoral chelonians. Such an archeal lung 

 presented the central pulmonary cavum still continuously lined by respi- 

 ratory epithelium, before the introduction of the intrapulmonary bron- 

 chial system. The more complicated and highly organized lungs of the 

 marine chelonians and of the Crocodilia are adaptations along the line 

 of continued reptilian develo]iment, beyond the point of the mammalian 

 derivation. 



