It is particularly interesting and instructive in this connection to compare the Enteropneusts with the Ascidia and the Amphioxus (Figures 2.220 and 2.210)--the remarkable animals that form the connecting link between the Invertebrates and the Vertebrates. In both forms the gut is of substantially the same construction; the anterior section forms the respiratory branchial gut, the posterior the digestive hepatic gut. In both it develops palingenetically from the primitive gut of the gastrula, and in both the hinder end of the medullary tube covers the primitive mouth to such an extent that the remarkable medullary intestinal duct is formed, the passing communication between the neural and intestinal tubes (canalis neurentericus, Figures 1.83 and 1.85 ne). In the vicinity of the closed primitive mouth, possibly in its place, the later anus is developed. In the same way the mouth is a fresh formation in the Amphioxus and the Ascidia. It is the same with the human mouth and that of the Craniotes generally. The secondary formation of the mouth in the Chordonia is probably connected with the development of the gill-clefts which are formed in the gut-wall immediately behind the mouth. In this way the anterior section of the gut is converted into a respiratory organ. I have already pointed out that this modification is distinctive of the Vertebrates and Tunicates. The phylogenetic appearance of the gill-clefts indicates the commencement of a new epoch in the stem-history of the Vertebrates. In the further ontogenetic development of the alimentary canal in the human embryo the appearance of the gill-clefts is the most important process. At a very early stage the gullet-wall joins with the external body-wall in the head of the human embryo, and this is followed by the formation of four clefts, which lead directly into the gullet from without, on the right and left sides of the neck, behind the mouth. These are the gill or gullet clefts, and the partitions that separate them are the gill or gullet-arches (Figure 1.171). These are most interesting embryonic structures. They show us that all the higher Vertebrates reproduce in their earlier stages, in harmony with the biogenetic law, the process that had so important a part in the rise of the whole Chordonia-stem. This process was the differentiation of the gut into two sections--an anterior respiratory section, the branchial gut, that was restricted to breathing, and a posterior digestive section, the hepatic gut. As we find this highly characteristic differentiation of the gut into two different sections in all the Vertebrates and all the Tunicates, we may conclude that it was also found in their common ancestors, the Prochordonia--especially as even the Enteropneusts have it. (Cf. Chapters 1.12, 1.14 and 2.20, and Figures 2.210, 2.220, 2.245.) It is entirely wanting in all the other Invertebrates.