Not only then is the structure of the head-shield of a Cephalaspid remarkably like the muco-cartilage of Ammocoetes, but also its general distribution strangely resembles that of the Ammocoetes muco-cartilage. Now, these head-shields in the Cephalaspidæ and Tremataspidæ {332}vary very much in shape, as is seen by the comparison of Tremataspis and Auchenaspis with Cephalaspis and Eukeraspis, and yet, undoubtedly, all these forms belong to a single group, the Osteostraci. The conception that Ammocoetes is the solitary living form allied to this group affords a clue to the meaning of this variation of shape, which appears to me to be possible, if not indeed probable. There is a certain amount of evidence given in the development of Ammocoetes which indicates that the branchial region of its ancestors was covered with plates of muco-cartilage as well as the prosomatic region. The evidence is as follows:-- The somatic muscles of Ammocoetes form a continuous longitudinal sheet of muscles along the length of the body, which are divided up by connective tissue bands into a series of imperfect segments or myotomes. This simple muscular sheet can be dissected off along the whole of the head-region of the animal, with the exception of the most anterior part, without interfering with the attachments or arrangements of the splanchnic muscular system in the least. The reason why this separation can be so easily effected is to be found in the fact that the two sets of muscles are not attached to the same fascia. The sheet of fascia to which the somatic muscles are attached is separated from the fascia which encloses the branchial cavity by a space (_cf._ Figs. 63 and 64) filled with blood-spaces and cells containing fat, in which space is also situated the cartilaginous branchial basket-work. These branchial bars are closely connected with the branchial sheet of fascia, and have no connection with the somatic fascia, their perichondrium forming part of the former sheet. Upon examination, this space is seen to be mainly vascular, the blood-spaces being large and frequently marked with pigment; but it also possesses a tissue of its own, recognized as fat-tissue by all observers. The peculiarity of the cells of this tissue is their arrangement; they are elongated cells arranged at right angles to the plates of fascia, just as the fibres of the muco-cartilage are largely arranged at right angles to their limiting plates of perichondrium. These cells do not necessarily contain fat; and when they do, the fat is found in the centre of each cell, and does not push the protoplasm of the cell to the periphery, as in ordinary fat cells.