The Evolution of Man.

VOL 2.

by Ernst Haeckel.

CHAPTER 2.16. STRUCTURE OF THE LANCELET AND THE SEA-SQUIRT.

In turning from the embryology to the phylogeny of man--from the development of the individual to that of the species--we must bear in mind the direct causal connection that exists between these two main branches of the science of human evolution. This important causal nexus finds its simplest expression in "the fundamental law of organic development," the content and purport of which we have fully considered in the first chapter. According to this biogenetic law, ontogeny is a brief and condensed recapitulation of phylogeny. If this compendious reproduction were complete in all cases, it would be very easy to construct the whole story of evolution on an embryonic basis.

When we wanted to know the ancestors of any higher organism, and, therefore, of man--to know from what forms the race as a whole has been evolved we should merely have to follow the series of forms in the development of the individual from the ovum; we could then regard each of the successive forms as the representative of an extinct ancestral form. However, this direct application of ontogenetic facts to phylogenetic ideas is possible, without limitations, only in a very small section of the animal kingdom. There are, it is true, still a number of lower invertebrates (for instance, some of the Zoophyta and Vermalia) in which we are justified in recognising at once each embryonic form as the historical reproduction, or silhouette, as it were, of an extinct ancestor. But in the great majority of the animals, and in the case of man, this is impossible, because the embryonic forms themselves have been modified through the change of the conditions of existence, and have lost their original character to some extent. During the immeasurable course of organic history, the many millions of years during which life was developing on our planet, secondary changes of the embryonic forms have taken place in most animals. The young of animals (not only detached larvae, but also the embryos enclosed in the womb) may be modified by the influence of the environment, just as well as the mature organisms are by adaptation to the conditions of life; even species are altered during the embryonic development. Moreover, it is an advantage for all higher organisms (and the advantage is greater the more advanced they are) to curtail and simplify the original course of development, and thus to obliterate the traces of their ancestors. The higher the individual organism is in the animal kingdom, the less completely does it reproduce in its embryonic development the series of its ancestors, for reasons that are as yet only partly known to us. The fact is easily proved by comparing the different developments of higher and lower animals in any single stem.

In order to appreciate this important feature, we have distributed the embryological phenomena in two groups, palingenetic and cenogenetic.

Under palingenesis we count those facts of embryology that we can directly regard as a faithful synopsis of the corresponding stem-history. By cenogenesis we understand those embryonic processes which we cannot directly correlate with corresponding evolutionary processes, but must regard as modifications or falsifications of them.

With this careful discrimination between palingenetic and cenogenetic phenomena, our biogenetic law a.s.sumes the following more precise shape:--The rapid and brief development of the individual (ontogeny) is a condensed synopsis of the long and slow history of the stem (phylogeny): this synopsis is the more faithful and complete in proportion as the original features have been preserved by heredity, and modifications have not been introduced by adaptation.

In order to distinguish correctly between palingenetic and cenogenetic phenomena in embryology, and deduce sound conclusions in connection with stem-history, we must especially make a comparative study of the former. In doing this it is best to employ the methods that have long been used by geologists for the purpose of establishing the succession of the sedimentary rocks in the crust of the earth. This solid crust, which encloses the glowing central ma.s.s like a thin sh.e.l.l, is composed of different kinds of rocks: there are, firstly, the volcanic rocks which were formed directly by the cooling at the surface of the molten ma.s.s of the earth; secondly, there are the sedimentary rocks, that have been made out of the former by the action of water, and have been laid in successive strata at the bottom of the sea. Each of these sedimentary strata was at first a soft layer of mud; but in the course of thousands of years it condensed into a solid, hard ma.s.s of stone (sandstone, limestone, marl, etc.), and at the same time permanently preserved the solid and imperishable bodies that had chanced to fall into the soft mud. Among these bodies, which were either fossilised or left characteristic impressions of their forms in the soft slime, we have especially the more solid parts of the animals and plants that lived and died during the deposit of the slimy strata.

Hence each of the sedimentary strata has its characteristic fossils, the remains of the animals and plants that lived during that particular period of the earth's history. When we make a comparative study of these strata, we can survey the whole series of such periods.

All geologists are now agreed that we can demonstrate a definite historical succession in the strata, and that the lowest of them were deposited in very remote, and the uppermost in comparatively recent, times. However, there is no part of the earth where we find the series of strata in its entirety, or even approximately complete. The succession of strata and of corresponding historical periods generally given in geology is an ideal construction, formed by piecing together the various partial discoveries of the succession of strata that have been made at different points of the earth's surface (cf. Chapter 2.18).

We must act in this way in constructing the phylogeny of man. We must try to piece together a fairly complete picture of the series of our ancestors from the various phylogenetic fragments that we find in the different groups of the animal kingdom. We shall see that we are really in a position to form an approximate picture of the evolution of man and the mammals by a proper comparison of the embryology of very different animals--a picture that we could never have framed from the ontogeny of the mammals alone. As a result of the above-mentioned cenogenetic processes--those of disturbed and curtailed heredity--whole series of lower stages have dropped out in the embryonic development of man and the other mammals especially from the earliest periods, or been falsified by modification. But we find these lower stages in their original purity in the lower vertebrates and their invertebrate ancestors. Especially in the lowest of all the vertebrates, the lancelet or Amphioxus, we have the oldest stem-forms completely preserved in the embryonic development. We also find important evidence in the fishes, which stand between the lower and higher vertebrates, and throw further light on the course of evolution in certain periods. Next to the fishes come the amphibia, from the embryology of which we can also draw instructive conclusions. They represent the transition to the higher vertebrates, in which the middle and older stages of ancestral development have been either distorted or curtailed, but in which we find the more recent stages of the phylogenetic process well preserved in ontogeny. We are thus in a position to form a fairly complete idea of the past development of man's ancestors within the vertebrate stem by putting together and comparing the embryological developments of the various groups of vertebrates. And when we go below the lowest vertebrates and compare their embryology with that of their invertebrate relatives, we can follow the genealogical tree of our animal ancestors much farther, down to the very lowest groups of animals.

In entering the obscure paths of this phylogenetic labyrinth, clinging to the Ariadne-thread of the biogenetic law and guided by the light of comparative anatomy, we will first, in accordance with the methods we have adopted, discover and arrange those fragments from the manifold embryonic developments of very different animals from which the stem-history of man can be composed. I would call attention particularly to the fact that we can employ this method with the same confidence and right as the geologist. No geologist has ever had ocular proof that the vast rocks that compose our Carboniferous or Jura.s.sic or Cretaceous strata were really deposited in water. Yet no one doubts the fact. Further, no geologist has ever learned by direct observation that these various sedimentary formations were deposited in a certain order; yet all are agreed as to this order. This is because the nature and origin of these rocks cannot be rationally understood unless we a.s.sume that they were so deposited. These hypotheses are universally received as safe and indispensable "geological theories," because they alone give a rational explanation of the strata.

Our evolutionary hypotheses can claim the same value, for the same reasons. In formulating them we are acting on the same inductive and deductive methods, and with almost equal confidence, as the geologist.

We hold them to be correct, and claim the status of "biological theories" for them, because we cannot understand the nature and origin of man and the other organisms without them, and because they alone satisfy our demand for a knowledge of causes. And just as the geological hypotheses that were ridiculed as dreams at the beginning of the nineteenth century are now universally admitted, so our phylogenetic hypotheses, which are still regarded as fantastic in certain quarters, will sooner or later be generally received. It is true that, as will soon appear, our task is not so simple as that of the geologist. It is just as much more difficult and complex as man's organisation is more elaborate than the structure of the rocks.

When we approach this task, we find an auxiliary of the utmost importance in the comparative anatomy and embryology of two lower animal-forms. One of these animals is the lancelet (Amphioxus), the other the sea-squirt (Ascidia). Both of these animals are very instructive. Both are at the border between the two chief divisions of the animal kingdom--the vertebrates and invertebrates. The vertebrates comprise the already mentioned cla.s.ses, from the Amphioxus to man (acrania, lampreys, fishes, dipneusts, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals). Following the example of Lamarck, it is usual to put all the other animals together under the head of invertebrates. But, as I have often mentioned already, the group is composed of a number of very different stems. Of these we have no interest just now in the echinoderms, molluscs, and articulates, as they are independent branches of the animal-tree, and have nothing to do with the vertebrates. On the other hand, we are greatly concerned with a very interesting group that has only recently been carefully studied, and that has a most important relation to the ancestral tree of the vertebrates. This is the stem of the Tunicates. One member of this group, the sea-squirt, very closely approaches the lowest vertebrate, the Amphioxus, in its essential internal structure and embryonic development. Until 1866 no one had any idea of the close connection of these apparently very different animals; it was a very fortunate accident that the embryology of these related forms was discovered just at the time when the question of the descent of the vertebrates from the invertebrates came to the front. In order to understand it properly, we must first consider these remarkable animals in their fully-developed forms and compare their anatomy.

We begin with the lancelet--after man the most important and interesting of all animals. Man is at the highest summit, the lancelet at the lowest root, of the vertebrate stem.

It lives on the flat, sandy parts of the Mediterranean coast, partly buried in the sand, and is apparently found in a number of seas.* (*

See the ample monograph by Arthur Willey, Amphioxus and the Ancestry of the Vertebrates; Boston, 1894.) It has been found in the North Sea (on the British and Scandinavian coasts and in Heligoland), and at various places on the Mediterranean (for instance, at Nice, Naples, and Messina). It is also found on the coast of Brazil and in the most distant parts of the Pacific Ocean (the coast of Peru, Borneo, China, Australia, etc.). Recently eight to ten species of the amphioxus have been determined, distributed in two or three genera.

(FIGURE 2.210. The lancelet (Amphioxus lanceolatus), twice natural size, left view. The long axis is vertical; the mouth-end is above, the tail-end below; a mouth, surrounded by threads of beard; b a.n.u.s, c gill-opening (porus branchialis), d gill-crate, e stomach, f liver, g small intestine, h branchial cavity, i chorda (axial rod), underneath it the aorta; k aortic arches, l trunk of the branchial artery, m swellings on its branches, n vena cava, o visceral vein.

FIGURE 2.211. Transverse section of the head of the Amphioxus. (From Boveri.) Above the branchial gut (kd) is the chorda, above this the neural tube (in which we can distinguish the inner grey and the outer white matter); above again is the dorsal fin (fh). To the right and left above (in the episoma) are the thick muscular plates (m); below (in the hyposoma) the gonads (g). ao aorta (here double), c corium, ec endostyl, f fascie, gl glomerulus of the kidneys, k branchial vessel, ld part.i.tion between the coeloma (sc) and atrium (p), mt transverse ventral muscle, n renal ca.n.a.ls, of upper and uf lower ca.n.a.ls in the mantle-folds, p peribranchial cavity, (atrium), sc coeloma (subchordal body-cavity), si princ.i.p.al (or subintestinal) vein, sk perichorda (skeletal layer).)

Johannes Muller cla.s.sed the lancelet with the fishes, although he pointed out that the differences between this simple vertebrate and the lowest fishes are much greater than between the fishes and the amphibia. But this was far from expressing the real significance of the animal. We may confidently lay down the following principle: The Amphioxus differs more from the fishes than the fishes do from man and the other vertebrates. As a matter of fact, it is so different from all the other vertebrates in its whole organisation that the laws of logical cla.s.sification compel us to distinguish two divisions of this stem: 1, the Acrania (Amphioxus and its extinct relatives); and 2, the Craniota (man and the other vertebrates). The first and lower division comprises the vertebrates that have no vertebrae or skull (cranium).

Of these the only living representatives are the Amphioxus and Paramphioxus, though there must have been a number of different species at an early period of the earth's history.

Opposed to the Acrania is the second division of the vertebrates, which comprises all the other members of the stem, from the fishes up to man. All these vertebrates have a head quite distinct from the trunk, with a skull (cranium) and brain; all have a centralised heart, fully-formed kidneys, etc. Hence they are called the Craniota. These Craniotes are, however, without a skull in their earlier period. As we already know from embryology, even man, like every other mammal, pa.s.ses in the earlier course of his development through the important stage which we call the chordula; at this lower stage the animal has neither vertebrae nor skull nor limbs (Figures 1.83 to 1.86). And even after the formation of the primitive vertebrae has begun, the segmented foetus of the amniotes still has for a long time the simple form of a lyre-shaped disk or a sandal, without limbs or extremities.

When we compare this embryonic condition, the sandal-shaped foetus, with the developed lancelet, we may say that the amphioxus is, in a certain sense, a permanent sandal-embryo, or a permanent embryonic form of the Acrania; it never rises above a low grade of development which we have long since pa.s.sed.

The fully-developed lancelet (Figure 2.210) is about two inches long, is colourless or of a light red tint, and has the shape of a narrow lancet-formed leaf. The body is pointed at both ends, but much compressed at the sides. There is no trace of limbs. The outer skin is very thin and delicate, naked, transparent, and composed of two different layers, a simple external stratum of cells, the epidermis, and a thin underlying cutis-layer. Along the middle line of the back runs a narrow fin-fringe which expands behind into an oval tail-fin, and is continued below in a short a.n.u.s-fin. The fin-fringe is supported by a number of square elastic fin-plates.

In the middle of the body we find a thin string of cartilage, which goes the whole length of the body from front to back, and is pointed at both ends (Figure 2.210 i). This straight, cylindrical rod (somewhat compressed for a time) is the axial rod or the chorda dorsalis; in the lancelet this is the only trace of a vertebral column. The chorda develops no further, but retains its original simplicity throughout life. It is enclosed by a firm membrane, the chorda-sheath or perichorda. The real features of this and of its dependent formations are best seen in the transverse section of the Amphioxus (Figure 2.211). The perichorda forms a cylindrical tube immediately over the chorda, and the central nervous system, the medullary tube, is enclosed in it. This important psychic organ also remains in its simplest shape throughout life, as a cylindrical tube, terminating with almost equal plainness at either end, and enclosing a narrow ca.n.a.l in its thick wall. However, the fore end is a little rounder, and contains a small, almost imperceptible bulbous swelling of the ca.n.a.l. This must be regarded as the beginning of a rudimentary brain. At the foremost end of it there is a small black pigment-spot, a rudimentary eye; and a narrow ca.n.a.l leads to a superficial sense-organ. In the vicinity of this optic spot we find at the left side a small ciliated depression, the single olfactory organ. There is no organ of hearing. This defective development of the higher sense-organs is probably, in the main, not an original feature, but a result of degeneration.

Underneath the axial rod or chorda runs a very simple alimentary ca.n.a.l, a tube that opens on the ventral side of the animal by a mouth in front and a.n.u.s behind. The oval mouth is surrounded by a ring of cartilage, on which there are twenty to thirty cartilaginous threads (organs of touch, Figure 2.210 a). The alimentary ca.n.a.l divides into sections of about equal length by a constriction in the middle. The fore section, or head-gut, serves for respiration; the hind section, or trunk-gut, for digestion. The limit of the two alimentary regions is also the limit of the two parts of the body, the head and the trunk. The head-gut or branchial gut forms a broad gill-crate, the grilled wall of which is pierced by numbers of gill-clefts (Figure 2.210 d). The fine bars of the gill-crate between the clefts are strengthened with firm parallel rods, and these are connected in pairs by cross-rods. The water that enters the mouth of the Amphioxus pa.s.ses through these clefts into the large surrounding branchial cavity or atrium, and then pours out behind through a hole in it, the respiratory pore (porus branchialis, Figure 2.210 c). Below, on the ventral side of the gill-crate, there is in the middle line a ciliated groove with a glandular wall (the hypobranchial groove), which is also found in the Ascidia and the larvae of the Cyclostoma. It is interesting because the thyroid gland in the larynx of the higher vertebrates (underneath the "Adam's apple") has been developed from it.

(FIGURE 2.212. Transverse section of an Amphioxus-larva, with five gill-clefts, through the middle of the body.

FIGURE 2.213. Diagram of the preceding. (From Hatschek.) A epidermis, B medullary tube, C chorda, C1 inner chorda-sheath, D visceral epithelium, E sub-intestinal vein. 1 cutis, 2 muscle-plate (myotome), 3 skeletal plate (sclerotome), 4 coeloseptum (part.i.tion between dorsal and ventral coeloma), 5 skin-fibre layer, 6 gut-fibre layer, I myocoel (dorsal body-cavity), II splanchnocoel (ventral body-cavity).)

Behind the respiratory part of the gut we have the digestive section, the trunk or liver (hepatic) gut. The small particles that the Amphioxus takes in with the water--infusoria, diatoms, particles of decomposed plants and animals, etc.--pa.s.s from the gill-crate into the digestive part of the ca.n.a.l, and are used up as food. From a somewhat enlarged portion, that corresponds to the stomach (Figure 2.210 e), a long, pouch-like blind sac proceeds straight forward (f); it lies underneath on the left side of the gill-crate, and ends blindly about the middle of it. This is the liver of the Amphioxus, the simplest kind of liver that we meet in any vertebrate. In man also the liver develops, as we shall see, in the shape of a pouch-like blind sac, that forms out of the alimentary ca.n.a.l behind the stomach.

The formation of the circulatory system in this animal is not less interesting. All the other vertebrates have a compressed, thick, pouch-shaped heart, which develops from the wall of the gut at the throat, and from which the blood-vessels proceed; in the Amphioxus there is no special centralised heart, driving the blood by its pulsations. This movement is effected, as in the annelids, by the thin blood-vessels themselves, which discharge the function of the heart, contracting and pulsating in their whole length, and thus driving the colourless blood through the entire body. On the under-side of the gill-crate, in the middle line, there is the trunk of a large vessel that corresponds to the heart of the other vertebrates and the trunk of the branchial artery that proceeds from it; this drives the blood into the gills (Figure 2.210 l). A number of small vascular arches arise on each side from this branchial artery, and form little heart-shaped swellings or bulbilla (m) at their points of departure; they advance along the branchial arches, between the gill-clefts and the fore-gut, and unite, as branchial veins, above the gill-crate in a large trunk blood-vessel that runs under the chorda dorsalis. This is the princ.i.p.al artery or primitive aorta (Figure 2.214 D). The branches which it gives off to all parts of the body unite again in a larger venous vessel at the underside of the gut, called the subintestinal vein (Figures 1.210 o and 2.212 E). This single main vessel of the Amphioxus goes like a closed circular water-conduit along the alimentary ca.n.a.l through the whole body, and pulsates in its whole length above and below. When the upper tube contracts the lower one is filled with blood, and vice versa. In the upper tube the blood flows from front to rear, then back from rear to front in the lower vessel.

The whole of the long tube that runs along the ventral side of the alimentary ca.n.a.l and contains venous blood may be called the "princ.i.p.al vein," and may be compared to the ventral vessel in the worms. On the other hand, the long straight vessel that runs along the dorsal line of the gut above, between it and the chorda, and contains arterial blood, is clearly identical with the aorta or princ.i.p.al artery of the other vertebrates; and on the other side it may be compared to the dorsal vessel in the worms.

(FIGURE 2.214. Transverse section of a young Amphioxus, immediately after metamorphosis, through the hindermost third (between the atrium-cavity and the a.n.u.s).

FIGURE 2.215. Diagram of preceding. (From Hatschek.) A epidermis, B medullary tube, C chorda, D aorta, E visceral epithelium, F subintestinal vein. 1 corium-plate, 2 muscle-plate, 3 fascie-plate, 4 outer chorda-sheath, 5 myoseptum, 6 skin-fibre plate, 7 gut-fibre plate, I myocoel, II splanchnocoel, I1 dorsal fin, I2 a.n.u.s-fin.)

The coeloma or body-cavity has some very important and distinctive features in the Amphioxus. The embryology of it is most instructive in connection with the stem-history of the body-cavity in man and the other vertebrates. As we have already seen (Chapter 1.10), in these the two coelom-pouches are divided at an early stage by transverse constrictions into a double row of primitive segments (Figure 1.124), and each of these subdivides, by a frontal or lateral constriction, into an upper (dorsal) and lower (ventral) pouch.

These important structures are seen very clearly in the trunk of the amphioxus (the latter third, Figures 2.212 to 2.215), but it is otherwise in the head, the foremost third (Figure 2.216). Here we find a number of complicated structures that cannot be understood until we have studied them on the embryological side in the next chapter (cf.

Figure 1.81). The branchial gut lies free in a s.p.a.cious cavity filled with water, which was wrongly thought formerly to be the body-cavity (Figure 2.216 A). As a matter of fact, this atrium (commonly called the peribranchial cavity) is a secondary structure formed by the development of a couple of lateral mantle-folds or gill-covers (M1, U). The real body-cavity (Lh) is very narrow and entirely closed, lined with epithelium. The peribranchial cavity (A) is full of water, and its walls are lined with the skin-sense layer; it opens outwards in the rear through the respiratory pore (Figure 2.210 c).

On the inner surface of these mantle-folds (M1), in the ventral half of the wide mantle cavity (atrium), we find the s.e.x-organs of the Amphioxus. At each side of the branchial gut there are between twenty and thirty roundish four-cornered sacs, which can clearly be seen from without with the naked eye, as they shine through the thin transparent body-wall. These sacs are the s.e.xual glands they are the same size and shape in both s.e.xes, only differing in contents. In the female they contain a quant.i.ty of simple ova (Figure 2.219 g); in the male a number of much smaller cells that change into mobile ciliated cells (sperm-cells). Both sacs lie on the inner wall of the atrium, and have no special outlets. When the ova of the female and the sperm of the male are ripe, they fall into the atrium, pa.s.s through the gill-clefts into the fore-gut, and are ejected through the mouth.

(FIGURE 2.216. Transverse section of the lancelet, in the fore half.

(From Ralph.) The outer covering is the simple cell-layer of the epidermis (E). Under this is the thin corium, the subcutaneous tissue of which is thickened; it sends connective-tissue part.i.tions between the muscles (M1) and to the chorda-sheath. N medullary tube, Ch chorda, Lh body-cavity, A atrium, L upper wall of same, E1 inner wall, E2 outer wall, Lh1 ventral remnant of same, Kst gill-reds, M ventral muscles, R seam of the joining of the ventral folds (gill-covers), G s.e.xual glands.)

Above the s.e.xual glands, at the dorsal angle of the atrium, we find the kidneys. These important excretory organs could not be found in the Amphioxus for a long time, on account of their remote position and their smallness; they were discovered in 1890 by Theodor Boveri (Figure 2.217 x). They are short segmented ca.n.a.ls; corresponding to the primitive kidneys of the other vertebrates (Figure 2.218 B). Their internal aperture (Figure 2.217 B) opens into the body-cavity; their outer aperture into the atrium (C). The prorenal ca.n.a.ls lie in the middle of the line of the head, outwards from the uppermost section of the gill-arches, and have important relations to the branchial vessels (H). For this reason, and in their whole arrangement, the primitive kidneys of the Amphioxus show clearly that they are equivalent to the prorenal ca.n.a.ls of the Craniotes (Figure 2.218 B). The prorenal duct of the latter (Figure 2.218 C) corresponds to the branchial cavity or atrium of the former (Figure 2.217 C).

(FIGURE 2.217. Transverse section through the middle of the Amphioxus.

(From Boveri.) On the left a gill-rod has been struck, and on the right a gill-cleft; consequently on the left we see the whole of a prorenal ca.n.a.l (x), on the right only the section of its fore-leg. A genital chamber (ventral section of the gonocoel), x p.r.o.nephridium, B its coelom-aperture, C atrium, D body-cavity, E visceral cavity, F subintestinal vein, G aorta (the left branch connected by a branchial vessel with the subintestinal vein), H renal vessel.

FIGURE 2.218. Transverse section of a primitive fish embryo (Selachii-embryo, from Boveri.). To the left p.r.o.nephridia (B), the right primitive kidneys (A). The dotted lines on the right indicate the later opening of the primitive kidney ca.n.a.ls (A) into the prorenal duct (C). D body-cavity, E visceral cavity, F subintestinal vein, G aorta, H renal vessel.)

If we sum up the results of our anatomic study of the Amphioxus, and compare them with the familiar organisation of man, we shall find an immense distance between the two. As a fact, the highest summit of the vertebrate organisation which man represents is in every respect so far above the lowest stage, at which the lancelet remains, that one would at first scarcely believe it possible to cla.s.s both animals in the same division of the animal kingdom. Nevertheless, this cla.s.sification is indisputably just. Man is only a more advanced stage of the vertebral type that we find unmistakably in the Amphioxus in its characteristic features. We need only recall the picture of the ideal Primitive Vertebrate given in a former chapter, and compare it with the lower stages of human embryonic development, to convince ourselves of our close relationship to the lancelet. (Cf. Chapter 1.11.)

It is true that the Amphioxus is far below all other living vertebrates. It is true that it has no separate head, no developed brain or skull, the characteristic feature of the other vertebrates.

It is (probably as a result of degeneration) without the auscultory organ and the centralised heart that all the others have; and it has no fully-formed kidneys. Every single organ in it is simpler and less advanced than in any of the others. Yet the characteristic connection and arrangement of all the organs is just the same as in the other vertebrates. All these, moreover, pa.s.s, during their embryonic development, through a stage in which their whole organisation is no higher than that of the Amphioxus, but is substantially identical with it.

(FIGURE 2.219. Transverse section of the head of the Amphioxus (at the limit of the first and second third of the body). (From Boveri) a aorta (here double), b atrium, c chorda, co umlaut coeloma (body-cavity), e endostyl (hypobranchial groove), g gonads (ovaries), kb gill-arches, kd branchial gut, l liver-tube (on the right, one-sided), m muscles, n renal ca.n.a.ls, r spinal cord, sn spinal nerves, sp gill-clefts.)

In order to see this quite clearly, it is particularly useful to compare the Amphioxus with the youthful forms of those vertebrates that are cla.s.sified next to it. This is the cla.s.s of the Cyclostoma.

There are to-day only a few species of this once extensive cla.s.s, and these may be distributed in two groups. One group comprises the hag-fishes or Myxinoides. The other group are the Petromyzontes, or lampreys, which are a familiar delicacy in their marine form. These Cyclostoma are usually cla.s.sified with the fishes. But they are far below the true fishes, and form a very interesting connecting-group between them and the lancelet. One can see how closely they approach the latter by comparing a young lamprey with the Amphioxus. The chorda is of the same simple character in both; also the medullary tube, that lies above the chorda, and the alimentary ca.n.a.l below it. However, in the lamprey the spinal cord swells in front into a simple pear-shaped cerebral vesicle, and at each side of it there are a very simple eye and a rudimentary auditory vesicle. The nose is a single pit, as in the Amphioxus. The two sections of the gut are also just the same and very rudimentary in the lamprey. On the other hand, we see a great advance in the structure of the heart, which is found underneath the gills in the shape of a centralised muscular tube, and is divided into an auricle and a ventricle. Later on the lamprey advances still further, and gets a skull, five cerebral vesicles, a series of independent gill-pouches, etc. This makes all the more interesting the striking resemblance of its immature larva to the developed and s.e.xually mature Amphioxus.

While the Amphioxus is thus connected through the Cyclostoma with the fishes, and so with the series of the higher vertebrates, it is, on the other hand, very closely related to a lowly invertebrate marine animal, from which it seems to be entirely remote at first glance.

This remarkable animal is the sea-squirt or Ascidia, which was formerly thought to be closely related to the mussel, and so cla.s.sed in the molluscs. But since the remarkable embryology of these animals was discovered in 1866, there can be no question that they have nothing to do with the molluscs. To the great astonishment of zoologists, they were found, in their whole individual development, to be closely related to the vertebrates. When fully developed the Ascidiae are shapeless lumps that would not, at first sight, be taken for animals at all. The oval body, frequently studded with k.n.o.bs or uneven and lumpy, in which we can discover no special external organs, is attached at one end to marine plants, rocks, or the floor of the sea. Many species look like potatoes, others like melon-cacti, others like prunes. Many of the Ascidiae form transparent crusts or deposits on stones and marine plants. Some of the larger species are eaten like oysters. Fishermen, who know them very well, think they are not animals, but plants. They are sold in the fish markets of many of the Italian coast-towns with other lower marine animals under the name of "sea-fruit" (frutti di mare). There is nothing about them to show that they are animals. When they are taken out of the water with the net the most one can perceive is a slight contraction of the body that causes water to spout out in two places. The bulk of the Ascidiae are very small, at the most a few inches long. A few species are a foot or more in length. There are many species of them, and they are found in every sea. As in the case of the Acrania, we have no fossilised remains of the cla.s.s, because they have no hard and fossilisable parts. However, they must be of great antiquity, and must go back to the primordial epoch.

The name of "Tunicates" is given to the whole cla.s.s to which the Ascidiae belong, because the body is enclosed in a thick and stiff covering like a mantle (tunica). This mantle--sometimes soft like jelly, sometimes as tough as leather, and sometimes as stiff as cartilage--has a number of peculiarities. The most remarkable of them is that it consists of a woody matter, cellulose--the same vegetal substance that forms the stiff envelopes of the plant-cells, the substance of the wood. The tunicates are the only cla.s.s of animals that have a real cellulose or woody coat. Sometimes the cellulose mantle is brightly coloured, at other times colourless. Not infrequently it is set with needles or hairs, like a cactus. Often we find a ma.s.s of foreign bodies--stone, sand, fragments of mussel-sh.e.l.ls, etc.--worked into the mantle. This has earned for the Ascidia the name of "the microcosm."

(FIGURE 2.220. Organisation of an Ascidia (left view); the dorsal side is turned to the right and the ventral side to the left, the mouth (o) above; the ascidia is attached at the tail end. The branchial gut (br), which is pierced by a number of clefts, continues below in the visceral gut. The r.e.c.t.u.m opens through the a.n.u.s (a) into the atrium (cl), from which the excrements are ejected with the respiratory water through the mantle-hole or cloaca (a); m mantle. (From Gegenbaur.)

FIGURE 2.221. Organisation of an Ascidia (as in Figure 2.220, seen from the left). sb branchial sac, v stomach, i small intestine, c heart, t t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, vd sperm-duct, o ovary, o apostrophe ripe ova in the branchial cavity. The two small arrows indicate the entrance and exit of the water through the openings of the mantle. (From Milne-Edwards.))

The hind end, which corresponds to the tail of the Amphioxus, is usually attached, often by means of regular roots. The dorsal and ventral sides differ a good deal internally, but frequently cannot be distinguished externally. If we open the thick tunic or mantle in order to examine the internal organisation, we first find a s.p.a.cious cavity filled with water--the mantle-cavity or respiratory cavity (Figure 2.220 cl). It is also called the branchial cavity and the cloaca, because it receives the excrements and s.e.xual products as well as the respiratory water. The greater part of the respiratory cavity is occupied by the large grated branchial sac (br). This is so like the gill-crate of the Amphioxus in its whole arrangement that the resemblance was pointed out by the English naturalist Goodsir, years ago, before anything was known of the relationship of the two animals.