GENERATIVE ORGANS OF SOME CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 499 
was not removed lived in the open air at least three hours after its extraction. 
Its stomach and intestines were both found empty; no yolk was detected inter- 
nally. No mention is made of any including capsule, seeming to warrant the 
inference that no membrane of the kind remained, and that the young fish were 
in contact with the walls of the uterine cavity. 
The other shark, which was called a large one, was taken in Lat. 2°34’ N. In 
its uterine cavities nine footal fish were found, five in one cavity, four in the other. 
Each was contained in its own membrane, full of ‘liquor amnii,” and each was 
connected with “a placenta” by a long “ umbilical cord.” All of them were about 
the same size—about two feet long. When extracted and thrown on deck, they 
were active and vigorous. Though without advanced teeth, two or three of them 
were seen to make an effort to bite a stick thrust against them.* 
The so-called “liquor amnii” was very salt to the taste, was slightly viscid, 
not quite transparent, and of a light grey colour. A few white flocculi were 
Suspended in it. When boiled, it did not coagulate or undergo any apparent 
change. Evaporated, it thickened, became brown, and ultimately black from 
charring, when it emitted much smoke and a strong ammoniacal odour. 
In the stomach and intestines of the parent fish, four different kinds of para- 
sitical worms were observed,—two in the former, two in the latter. 
5. Of the Squalus Centrina.—In the month of March, when at Constantinople, 
I procured two fish of this kind, which had been taken in the Sea of Marmora, and, 
it is worthy of remark, by the same cast of the net: they were male and female. 
The male fish was about 25 feet long, and rather slender. The testes} were 
pretty large, each nearly of the form of a date, its surface vascular, smooth, and 
equal. Its substance was soft; when cut it yielded some opaque fiuid, which, 
under the microscope, was seen to abound in globules. The milt-like part 
superiorly was thin and small; cut into, it yielded a milky fluid, in which, under 
the microscope, numerous globules were seen, and one spermatozoon. The epididy- 
mis, itself small, was connected with the milt-like part by four or five delicate 
tubuli; these, divided under water, yielded a little milky fluid, also abounding in 
globules similar to those of the milt-like part. A milky fluid was also obtained 
from the epididymis, from its superior portion. This was rich in spermatozoa ; 
it contained, besides, a few globular particles. The vas deferens and the vesicle 
in which it terminated yielded a cream-like fluid, rich also in spermatozoa. The 
vesicle in which, probably, the ureters also terminated (it was not ascertained by 
* Other instances of a like kind might be mentioned, showing how provident Nature is in giving 
instincts and organs to young animals, suitable to their protection when in their feeblest state, and 
their lives, in consequence, most in danger. The foetus of the torpedo, even before birth, I have 
found capable of giving a shock. In the foetus of the viper (Coluber berus) I have found the poison- 
fangs developed. The young alligator I have seen, as soon as it left the egg—and that prematurely, 
from the egg being broken—make to the adjoining water, and, if stopt, attempt to bite the arresting 
object. 
; T See Plate XXIT,, fig. 8. 
VOL. XXII. PART IIL. 6N 
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