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the eye, to the number of four, are attached to the sclerotic. 
The Harderian gland is relatively very large. Although 
zoologists are right in attributing to Ccecilia annulata the 
character oculi minuti ; they go too far when they say of 
C. lutnbricodea “ oculi iiulli .” They ought to be content with 
saying oculi minutissimi. The eyes are, in fact, always 
present, although extremely reduced in size. No crystalline 
is present in this case, and the gland of Harder is enormous. 
It is the same in the blind serpents, Typhlops, where Du- 
veruoy has described a lachrymal gland six times as big as the 
ocular bulb. 
Dr. Leydig has paid special attention to the singular organ 
mentioned by authors sometimes as the “ false nostril,” some- 
times as the “ lachrymal cavity.” By this is understood a 
cutaneous pore conducting into a canal which is directed 
obliquely towards the eye. Joh. Muller recognised in the 
interior of this canal, in different species, a tentacle, or tongue- 
shaped papilla. 
Leydig confirms the existence of this organ ; he finds, 
moreover, that from the wall of the cavity in C. annulata 
two tubes take their origin, joined one to the other, and 
which one might at first mistake for vessels. Their walls 
have no muscular fibres, but are composed entirely of very 
fine fibres of connective tissue. These two tubes reunite at 
the opposite extremity, forming a loop. An analogous organ 
exists in the Ccecilia lumbricoidea. The functions of this 
apparatus are quite obscure. One might suggest that we have 
here an organ of special sense, comparable to the “ mucous 
canal ” of fishes ; but the essential character of an organ of 
sense — viz. a peripheral nervous structure — appears to be 
wanting. 
The Ccecilise present points of affinity with fishes and 
with scaly reptiles, though essentially amphibious. They 
are the remains of a group of Amphibia, formerly richly de- 
veloped, wffiich must have branched off from the fishes Avith 
the Amphibia in the carboniferous epoch (Arcliegosaurus). 
The affinity of the Coeciliae Avith fishes is seen in the structure 
of the bodies of the vertebrae, in the nature of the scales, and 
their disposition in cutaneous pouches. The kidneys, too, 
of these animals have been compared to those of fishes. Dr. 
Leydig does not agree to this assimilation. The kidneys, he 
considers, have the same structure as in the other Amphibians 
— they remind him of the kidneys of the Ophidia. The 
affinity Avith Ophidia is carried out, not only in general form, 
but in the dentition and in the atrophy of one lung. 
The affinities with Amphibia are established by the rich 
