The external gills lead to a further consideration. _Protopterus_ possesses a vestigial external gill on the shoulder-girdle. _Lepidosiren_ has them on the gill-arches, resembling piscine internal gills, and _Polypterus_ has a large biserially fringed external gill (in some cases not disappearing until the fish is adult), which starts from the mandibular arch, at the level of the spiracle or first visceral cleft, and overlaps the operculum externally. The axis of this peculiar organ is possibly based upon the homologues of the spiracular cartilages, which themselves are the branchiostegal rays of the dorsal half of the quadrato-mandibular arch. The branchiostegal rays of the hyoidean arch, at least their material, have given rise to the elaborate opercular apparatus; and, in conformity herewith, the hyomandibular itself is not known to carry a gill. Quite possibly the large external gill of _Polypterus_ is not serially homologous with other external gills–it may not be a true gill at all, it has perhaps quite a different function–but it seems to throw light upon a mysterious pair of organs which are common in larval and young Urodela, in the larval Aglossa and in the Apoda. These are the "balancers." In _Triton taeniatus_, before hatching, there appears a little protuberance behind and below the eye; it rests upon the angle of the mandibular arch, and is separated from the first transverse, externally visible ridge of the first branchial arch by the beginnings of the hyoidean arch. A few days later the arteria hyomandibularis sends a vessel into this knob, forms a vascular coil, and leaves it as a vein which, instead of returning into the arterial arch, passes into the veins of the body. Its epithelium is not covered with flat, but with cubical cells; and sensory cells have not been found in it. These organs attain some size, and are shaped like rods, with thickened ends; they are movable, and are used by the larvae as "balancers," keeping the head from sinking into the slime at the bottom. But they may have other functions besides, and it is not unlikely that they develop into sensory organs like feelers. They occur in many Salamandridae, and are not reduced until, or even after, the metamorphosis, and during this time they shift their place with relation to the eye and the mouth.