The first blood-vessels of the mammal embryo have been considered by us previously, and we shall study the development of the heart in the second volume. (FIGURE 1.201. Vitelline vessels in the germinative area of a chick-embryo, at the close of the third day of incubation. (From Balfour.) The detached germinative area is seen from the ventral side: the arteries are dark, the veins light. H heart, AA aorta-arches, Ao aorta, R.Of.A right omphalo-mesenteric artery, S.T sinus terminalis, L.Of and R.Of right and left omphalo-mesenteric veins, S.V sinus venosus, D.C ductus Cuvieri, S.Ca.V and V.Ca fore and hind cardinal veins.) In every vertebrate it lies at first in the ventral wall of the fore-gut, or in the ventral (or cardiac) mesentery, by which it is connected for a time with the wall of the body. But it soon severs itself from the place of its origin, and lies freely in a cavity--the cardiac cavity. For a short time it is still connected with the former by the thin plate of the mesocardium. Afterwards it lies quite free in the cardiac cavity, and is only directly connected with the gut-wall by the vessels which issue from it. The fore-end of the spindle-shaped tube, which soon bends into an S-shape (Figure 1.202), divides into a right and left branch. These tubes are bent upwards arch-wise, and represent the first arches of the aorta. They rise in the wall of the fore-gut, which they enclose in a sense, and then unite above, in the upper wall of the fore gut-cavity, to form a large single artery, that runs backward immediately under the chorda, and is called the aorta (Figure 1.201 Ao). The first pair of aorta-arches rise on the inner wall of the first pair of gill-arches, and so lie between the first gill-arch (k) and the fore-gut (d), just as we find them throughout life in the fishes. The single aorta, which results from the conjunction of these two first vascular arches, divides again immediately into two parallel branches, which run backwards on either side of the chorda. These are the primitive aortas which we have already mentioned; they are also called the posterior vertebral arteries. These two arteries now give off at each side, behind, at right angles, four or five branches, and these pass from the embryonic body to the germinative area, they are called omphalo-mesenteric or vitelline arteries. They represent the first beginning of a foetal circulation. Thus, the first blood-vessels pass over the embryonic body and reach as far as the edge of the germinative area. At first they are confined to the dark or "vascular" area. But they afterwards extend over the whole surface of the embryonic vesicle. In the end, the whole of the yelk-sac is covered with a vascular net-work. These vessels have to gather food from the contents of the yelk-sac and convey it to the embryonic body. This is done by the veins, which pass first from the germinative area, and afterwards from the yelk-sac, to the farther end of the heart. They