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The median congenital fissures of the neck are probably caused by defective union of the branchial arches, although Arndt thinks that he sees in these median fistulas a persistence of the hypobranchial furrow which exists normally in the amphioxus. They are less frequent than the preceding variety. The most typical form of malformation of the esophagus is imperforation or obliteration.

But, although the anterior section of our alimentary canal thus entirely loses its original character of branchial gut, it retains the physiological character of respiratory gut. We are now astonished to find that the permanent respiratory organ of the higher Vertebrates, the air-breathing lung, is developed from this first part of the alimentary canal.

Very well; but tell me; has that amorphous gill-slit oh, no, the branchial lamella has it behaved itself and proved to be the avenue which shall lead you to fame?" Mr. Van Camp stood silent through this flippant badinage, and calmly waited until Miss Reynier had settled herself.

The agreement in the structure of the branchial gut of the Enteropneusts, Tunicates, and Vertebrates was first recognised by Gegenbaur ; it is the more significant as at first we find only a couple of gill-clefts in the young animals of all three groups; the number gradually increases.

S. V. Clevenger considers these organs to have had a branchial or respiratory origin, saying that there are many reasons for believing them to be rudimentary gills. Owen says that the thymus appears in vertebrates with the establishment of the lung as the main or exclusive respiratory organ. It is wanting in all fishes, also in the gill-bearing batrachians, siren and proteus.

In their more advanced mesoderm we find a few contractile longitudinal canals which force the blood through the body by their contractions; these are the first blood-vessels. Transverse section of the branchial gut. A of Balanoglossus, B of Ascidia. r branchial gut, n pharyngeal groove, asterisk ventral folds between the two.

Congenital fistulæ, such as occur in the neck from imperfect closure of branchial clefts, or in the abdomen from unobliterated fœtal ducts such as the urachus or Meckel's diverticulum, will be described in their proper places.

This process was the differentiation of the gut into two sections an anterior respiratory section, the branchial gut, that was restricted to breathing, and a posterior digestive section, the hepatic gut.

We cannot, for instance, suppose that in the embryos of the vertebrata the peculiar loop-like course of the arteries near the branchial slits are related to similar conditions, in the young mammal which is nourished in the womb of its mother, in the egg of the bird which is hatched in a nest, and in the spawn of a frog under water.

We all know that the arm and hand of a monkey, the foreleg and foot of a dog and of a horse, the wing of a bat, and the fin of a porpoise, are fundamentally identical; that the long neck of the giraffe has the same and no more bones than the short one of the elephant; that the eggs of Surinam frogs hatch into tadpoles with as good tails for swimming as any of their kindred, although as tadpoles they never enter the water; that the Guinea-pig is furnished with incisor teeth which it never uses, as it sheds them before birth; that embryos of mammals and birds have branchial slits and arteries running in loops, in imitation or reminiscence of the arrangement which is permanent in fishes; and that thousands of animals and plants have rudimentary organs which, at least in numerous cases, are wholly useless to their possessors, etc., etc.