MORPHOLOGICAL STUDIES. 
65 
of sense organs of the lateral line, and that it finds a parallel in 
the luminous organs of certain Fishes described by him (No. 13). 
It is with regret that one must insist how impossible this 
suggestion is, and how little likelihood there is that any 
zoologist will adopt it. 
I should be the last person in the world not to agree that 
the system of lateral sense organs is a very remarkable one, 
and one from which the so-called higher sense organs, except 
the paired eyes, will be proved, if the proof is not to every- 
body’s satisfaction yet complete, to have phylogenetically been 
derived. And although the parietal eye may present resem- 
blances in its structure to Leydig’s luminous organs, in all 
other respects the proposed homology cannot be maintained; 
and as soon as one attempts to compare the parietal eye in any 
way with the lateral sense organs all possibility of their 
homology vanishes. All the lateral sense organs develop 
apart from the central system, and in connection with cranial 
nerves and ganglia; while we have no facts as yet which show 
that the parietal eye is otherwise than a portion of the central 
nervous system, in which respect it agrees with the paired 
eyes. 
As things at present are, I see no advantage in a further 
discussion of this matter, and beg to refer the reader who 
wishes more light on the relations of the central to the peri- 
pheral nervous system to the first part of my work on the 
latter, which may see the light before this paper. 
I may pass over Beraneck’s recent paper (No. 4) on the 
development of the organ in Anguis and Lacerta, seeing that 
it contains practically no facts of importance which were not 
already known from de Graaf’s and Hoffmann’s researches 
(No. 11). Of the latter, Beraneck appears to have been en- 
tirely ignorant, although they cover a good deal of the ground 
of his paper. Only one statement in Beraneck’s work calls for 
notice, and that is his agreement with Spencer (No. 14) that 
the lens passes continuously over into the retina in Anguis. From 
his figures I do not suppose M. Beraneck’s specimens were in 
a very good state of preservation, and I must undoubtedly 
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