The peculiar embryonic development of the vertebrate eye does not enable us to draw any definite conclusions as to its obscure phylogeny; it is clearly cenogenetic to a great extent, or obscured by the reduction and curtailment of its original features. It is probable that many of the earlier stages of its phylogeny have disappeared without leaving a trace. It can only be said positively that the peculiar ontogeny of the complicated optic apparatus in man follows just the same laws as in all the other Vertebrates. Their eye is a part of the fore brain, which has grown forward towards the skin, not an original cutaneous sense-organ, as in the Invertebrates. (FIGURE 2.319. Horizontal transverse section of the eye of a human embryo, four weeks old (magnified one hundred times). (From Kolliker.) t lens (the dark wall of which is as thick as the diameter of the central cavity), g corpus vitreum (connected by a stem, g, with the corium), v vascular loop (pressing behind the lens inside the corpus vitreum by means of this stem g), i retina (inner thicker, invaginated layer of the primary optic vesicle), a pigment membrane (outer, thin, non-invaginated layer of same), h space between retina and pigment membrane (remainder of the cavity of the primary optic vesicle). FIGURE 2.320. The human ear (left ear, seen from the front, natural size), a shell of ear, b external passage, c tympanum, d tympanic cavity, e Eustachian tube, f, g, h the three bones of the ear (f hammer, g anvil, h stirrup), i utricle, k the three semi-circular canals, l the sacculus, m cochlea, n auscultory nerve.)