140 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
ficance of the facts of its morphology has not yet received 
that emphasis which it deserves. 
The oral hypophysis (pituitary body) is well known 
to arise in the higher vertebrata as a diverticulum of the 
stomodeum; and as such it is customarily described. 
Goette described it in 1874* as having, in Bombinator, a 
provisional connection with the olfactory organ, and he 
therefore homologized it with the naso-palatine duct 
of the Marsipobranchs. Dohrn, eight years later, while 
extending this view of the homology of the pituitary body, 
discoveredt its primary independence in origin from the 
epiblast, and in so doing opened up a new era in its study. 
Comparison of Goette’s and Dohrn’s figures leaves little 
room for doubting the homology of the structures which 
they described. Scott has raised objections to Dohrn’s 
views, upon the grounds that? ‘‘there is no more reason for 
regarding the entire canal of Cyclostomata as belonging to 
the hypophysis than in the case of the higher vertebrates 
for regarding the entire stomodeum as belonging to 
that body.” This objection is to-day invalid, inasmuch as 
all subsequent research has proved that the said ‘‘entire 
canal”’ of the Cyclostomata is the homologue of that from 
which, by modification consequent upon its being carried 
in with the stomodeum, the pituitary body of all the 
higher gnathostomata is derived.§ Scott has further laid 
stress) upon the fact that the connection described by 
Goette between the olfactory organ and the hypophysis of 
the Fire Toad could not be found in any other Amphibian 
whose development had been then investigated. All sub- 
* Entwickelungsgesch, d. Unke., p. 318. 
+ Naples Mittheilungen, Bd. IV, p. 172. 
tJour. of Morph. Vol. I, p. 267. 
§see Kaeennsche in Schneider’s Zoolog. Beitrage, Breslau, Bd. II, pp. 
228—229, 1890. ' 
| Loc. cit., p. 267. 
