284 The American Naturalist. [March, 
chamber—pronephric duct), part in wholly other associations (genital 
_ chamber=mesonephric tubules). As in the whole of the rest of its 
organization, Amphioxus, in its urogenital system, shows in contrast 
. with the Craniata, a condition of simplicity and indifference, which is 
recapitulated by the latter in their ontogeny. 
These facts show that we may recognize the conditions of the excre- 
. tory and sexual apparatus of Amphioxus as primitive from which the 
_ relations found in the Craniata have probably developed. Amphioxus 
_is therefore to be taken from its former isolated position, and it shows 
itself to be, as in all its other organs, so with reference to its urogenital 
system actually as the primitive type of the vertebrates, as the true 
. primitive vertebrate. 
The Position of the Marsipobranchs.—Prof. G. B. Howes 
__ has reviewed’ the various conflicting views as to the systematic position 
and affinities of the lampreys and hag-fishes, and reconsiders the various 
_ structural points of value in that connection. He points out that these 
forms must be regarded as aberrant gnathostomata; that their uro- 
genital apparatus with that of the Teleosts is the least modified survival 
„of an hermaphroditic apparatus possessed by the ancestors of the 
_ vertebrates; that the sucking mouth of these forms has been second- 
arily acquired, and-is not genitically connected with that of the batra- 
_chian larva. The arguments from the hypophysis are also considered 
„and assigned great weight, and the rasping tongue is given a greater 
‘value. in uniting the lampreys and myxinoids than is the sucking 
‚mouth. As a result, dismissing, as shown above the term Agnatha for 
these forms, Howes divides the Vertebrata proper into Epicraniata and 
. Hypocraniata, basing the division upon the position of the hypophysis; 
. the Epicraniata containing only the Marsipobranchs. He has also a 
. secondary division into Euthorehidic and Nephrorchidie series—the 
_lampreys, Teleosts and Dipnoi belonging to the former; all other verte- 
_ brates (except, possibly, some ganoids) belonging to the latter series. 
He thinks that Haeckel’s famous aphorism that the Marsipobranct 
“are further removed from the fishes than the fishes are from man,” 
fails to express the enormity of the gap between these forms and the 
“ higher vertebrates. 
-Degeneration of the Clitoris.—In a paper read before the 
American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the St. 
- Louis, N. W., meeting in 1892, Dr. Robert T. Morris stated that about 
_ 80 per cent. of all Aryan American women have adhesions which bind — 4 
"Trans. Biol. Socy. Liverpool, VI, 1892. 
