Transactions of the American Microscopical Society (Volume 17) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895. Excerpt: ... THE SPERMATHECA AND flETHODS OF FERTILIZATION IN SOME AMERICAN NEWTS AND SALAMANDERS. B. F. Kingsbury, Ph. D., Defiance, O. In the proceedings of the American Microscopical Society for i894, in a paper upon the " Histological Structure of the Enteron of Necturus maculatus" the writer alluded to the presence of "Receptacula seminis," in the dorsal wall of the cloaca of the female in this animal. Certain inconsistencies between the conditions in this one form, and statements made by investigators who had worked upon European salamanders alone, showed the desirability of a knowledge of the relations existing in a wider range of forms, and a study of the cloaca in the female of six species of American urodeles was undertaken. These forms were Necturus, a perennibranchiate purely aquatic form; Diemyctylus viridescens, aquatic in its larval and adult state, but passing through a land stage; Amblystoma punctatum, a terrestrial salamander in the adult, except at the breeding season; Desmognathus fusca and Spelerpes bilineatus, forms which seem to adapt themselves readily to either a land or water existence; and Plethodon erythronotus andglutinosus, forms which are said to (Cope) pass no period, even as larvae, of their existence in the water. These are representatives of five families and two orders of Amphibia, and present in variation of habit of life a good series from a purely aquatic to as purely a terrestrial existence. The general result has been the recognition in all of structures in the cloacal wall of the female which serve as reservoirs in which the zoosperms of the male are received, functionally comparable, therefore, to the Receptaculum seminis of certain insects and other Arthropods. This term, however, by which they have been designated hitherto, ...