Parra (1787) makes no mention of the viscera other than the air bladder. This in his specimen was 12 inches long by 5 inches thick. His figure of the air-bladder, while crude, is in the main correct.
Cuvier and Valenciennes (1829) give a very definite description of the internal organs of a fish of the species described by Rondelet: "The viscera are simple, elongated. The liver has only one lobe, placed on the right side of the abdomen.
"The oesophagus is short and soon is transformed into the stomach, which is an elongated but narrow sac of such a kind that the capacity of the viscera is not very great. The pylorus opens close to the cardiac end near to the diaphragm; it is provided with a very great number of caeca, disposed in a single row on the length of the duodenum. The intestine is narrow and goes straight to the anus without making a bend." They note that the liver is black, rather thick, rounded at its extremities, and placed across the middle of the stomach. The swim bladder is large with the upper walls thicker than those next the viscera. It is pointed behind, but forked in front. Each horn is pointed and terminates near the skull, but no communication with the auditory capsules could be found.
Of our form, Sphyrcena barracuda, Cuvier and Valenciennes merely say that its viscera are very similar to those of the European form, the chief difference being that its stomach is larger.
Where so many other structures were found to be so markedly individual it was something of a disappointment to find the reproduc tive organs entirely normal in structure and position. They were, how ever, very large, befitting a fish of this size. No. 10 (3 feet 10 inches over all) was a male with a spermary bifurcated in front but coalesced behind into a common tube ending in the genital pore. The right lobe was 8, the left 9.5 inches in length anterior to the point of bifurcation.
The gross structure of the ovary is precisely that of the spermary. My largest specimen (No. 12) was a female 4 feet 7 inches long over all. The right lobe of her ovary was 14.5 inches long, at the left sac 15.5—the eggs being immature. This huge ovary was presented to the United States National Museum, to the authorities of which I am indebted for the beautiful photograph which forms figure 14 of plate iv.
In the course of this research the only reference found to the struc ture of the reproductive organs is in Cuvier and Valenciennes (1829), and they merely note that the spermaries and ovaries are two straight sacs found in the hinder part of the abdomen.