350 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
arteria pharyngea (pi. 24, figs. 3, 4) to the ventral wall of pharynx 
and esophagus, and also sends out a small branch laterally, which 
seems to me from its origin and distribution to be a small arteria 
cutanea (pi. 24, fig. 3). The pulmonary artery then passes poste¬ 
riorly along the esophagus and stomach, and anastomoses with a 
branch of one of the gastric arteries, as previously stated. 
The foregoing description covers the anatomy of the main blood 
vessels in Desmognathus. A curious condition in this animal, which 
seems to call for more particular discussion, is the nomenclature and 
relation of the two arteries which I have called arteria sternalis and 
arteria epigastrica. The former is the same vessel which Bethge calls 
arteria cutanea magna. As this name is given in most other Amphibia 
to the artery which branches from the pulmonary arch and supplies a 
portion of the skin, it has seemed to me more fitting to keep the name 
arteria cutanea for the small branch already mentioned, which in 
Desmognathus arises from the pulmonary arch and supplies the skin 
of the side of the neck (pi. 24, fig. 3). The branch from the subclavian 
artery (pi. 23, fig. 1, a. ster.), Bethge’s arteria cutanea magna, more¬ 
over, bears a close resemblance to what is named arteria sternalis in 
mammals, arteria thoracico-abdominalis in the frog (Gaupp). A 
similar branch of the subclavian in Triton and Salamandra was shown 
by Bethge to course over the ventral wall of the trunk and anastomose 
with the superficial epigastric artery. I have called the branch of the 
aorta anterior to the iliac artery, arteria epigastrica (pi. 23, fig. 1; pi. 
24, fig. 3), although it has here an independent origin from the aorta. 
It is possible that we have in Desmognathus an indication of a condi¬ 
tion more primitive than that in mammals,— a series of segmentally 
arranged vertebral arteries, which were once all connected by anasto¬ 
moses, and that later in vertebrate development the connections with 
the aorta of the middle part of the series were lost, and the anasto¬ 
moses made one continuous artery along the ventral wall of the trunk, 
the arteria sternalis of mammals. 
In summary, I have noted the following differences between the dis¬ 
position of blood vessels in Desmognathus and that in Spelerpes as 
shown by Bethge:— 
1. The vena subclavia entering the sinus venosus directly, instead 
of first opening into the ductus Cuvieri; and the right and left venae 
subclaviae opening together into the sinus on its left side. 
2. The vena abdominalis arising, not from the venae iliacae, but 
from the venae iliacae communes. 
