However, the Amphioxus is important not merely because it fills the deep gulf between the Invertebrates and Vertebrates, but also because it shows us to-day the typical vertebrate in all its simplicity. We owe to it the most important data that we proceed on in reconstructing the gradual historical development of the whole stem. All the Craniota descend from a common stem-form, and this was substantially identical in structure with the Amphioxus. This stem-form, the Primitive Vertebrate (Prospondylus, Figures 1.98 to 1.102), had the characteristics of the vertebrate as such, but not the important features that distinguish the Craniota from the Acrania. Though the Amphioxus has many peculiarities of structure and has much degenerated, and though it cannot be regarded as an unchanged descendant of the Primitive Vertebrate, it must have inherited from it the specific characters we enumerated above. We may not say that "Amphioxus is the ancestor of the Vertebrates"; but we can say: "Amphioxus is the nearest relation to the ancestor of all the animals we know." Both belong to the same small family, or lowest class of the Vertebrates, that we call the Acrania. In our genealogical tree this group forms the twelfth stage, or the first stage among the vertebrate ancestors (Chapter 2.20). From this group of Acrania both the Amphioxus and the Craniota were evolved. The vast division of the Craniota embraces all the Vertebrates known to us, with the exception of the Amphioxus. All of them have a head clearly differentiated from the trunk, and a skull enclosing a brain. The head has also three pairs of higher sense-organs (nose, eyes, and ears). The brain is very rudimentary at first, a mere bulbous enlargement of the fore end of the medullary tube. But it is soon divided by a number of transverse constrictions into, first three, then five successive cerebral vesicles. In this formation of the head, skull, and brain, with further development of the higher sense-organs, we have the advance that the Craniota made beyond their skull-less ancestors. Other organs also attained a higher development; they acquired a compact centralised heart with valves and a more advanced liver and kidneys, and made progress in other important respects. We may divide the Craniota generally into Cyclostoma ("round-mouthed") and Gnathostoma ("jaw-mouthed"). There are only a few groups of the former in existence now, but they are very interesting, because in their whole structure they stand midway between the Acrania and the Gnathostoma. They are much more advanced than the Acrania, much less so than the fishes, and thus form a very welcome connecting-link between the two groups. We may therefore consider them a special intermediate group, the fourteenth and fifteenth stages in the series of our ancestors.