228 



MR. NOEL TAYLER ON 



peritoneum in a line with the head of the epididymis a delicate 

 filament which, while it answered in every respect to the 

 rudiment described by him, instead of ending abruptly and 

 blindly became suddenly enlarged, opening into the body-cavity 

 by a wide-mouthed funnel-shaped extremity, identical with that 

 of the oviduct, and lined by a ciliated epithelium." 



This without doubt seems the description of a vestigial oviduct, 

 yet, posteriorly, according to his figure, it appears to arise from 

 the anterior tip of the epididymis. Unfortunately he does not 

 seem to have investigated the precise nature of its relations to 

 this organ. 



The sections through the kidneys reveal the presence on the 

 dorsal portion of one of them of an embedded mass of almost fully 

 grown ova. Text-fig. 3 is a semi-diagrammatic representation 

 of one of the sections in which five ova occur. It will be seen 

 that the mass of ova lies actually embedded within the kidney 

 tissue (kid.). Each ovum is surrounded by a layer of follicular 

 cells (foil, ep.), while externally to this and separating it from 

 the kidney substance is a thin fibrous layer (thee, foil.) presum- 

 ably representing the theca folliculi. 



II. Discussion. 



No instance of complete hermaphroditism in the Lacertilia 

 seems yet to have been put upon record, though cases of the 

 more or less complete developmeut of the Miillerian Ducts in 

 adult male lizards have been described. 



Leydig in 1872 (7) described the persistence in the males of 

 Lacerta agilis of the Miillerian Ducts as small blind and con- 

 voluted tubules, while Braun in 1877 (2) noted the development 

 of rudimentary Miillerian Ducts in the young male of the same 

 species, making no mention, however, of its presence in the 

 adult form. 



In 1887 Howes (5) published a brief but important paper, 

 " On the vestigial structures of the reproductive apparatus in 

 the male of the Green Lizard " (Lacerta vindis). One of his 

 specimens was a male lizard in which both the oviducts were all 

 but fully developed, while in another the oviduct was fully 

 developed on one side. 



In thirteen out of twenty-five specimens examined certain 

 segments of the oviduct were well developed, the other portions 

 being only represented as delicate filaments, thus giving a series 

 of conditions analogous to those described by Matthews for the 

 male toad. 



In 1893, Hill (4) published an account of the persistence of 

 vestigial Miillerian Ducts in the full-grown male of an Australian 

 lizard, Arnphibolurus muricatus ; while two yeais later, in 1895, 

 Jaquet (6) described the presence of Miillerian Ducts identical 

 with those of the normal female in an adult individual of 

 Lacerta ay ills. 



