The swim-bladder has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fishes.

All physiologists admit that the swim-bladder is homologous, or "ideally similar" in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there is no reason to doubt that the swim-bladder has actually been converted into lungs, or an organ used exclusively for respiration.
According to this view it may be inferred that all vertebrate animals with true lungs are descended by ordinary generation from an ancient and unknown prototype which was furnished with a floating apparatus or swim-bladder.

We can thus, as I infer from Professor Owen's interesting description of these parts, understand the strange fact that every particle of food and drink which we swallow has to pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs, notwithstanding the beautiful contrivance by which the glottis is closed.

In the higher Vertebrata the branchiae have wholly disappeared--but in the embryo the slits on the sides of the neck and the loop-like course of the arteries still mark their former position.
But it is conceivable that the now utterly lost branchiae might have been gradually worked in by natural selection for some distinct purpose: for instance, Landois has shown that the wings of insects are developed from the trachea; it is therefore highly probable that in this great class organs which once served for respiration have been actually converted into organs for flight.
In considering transitions of organs, it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another, that I will give another instance.

Pedunculated cirripedes have two minute folds of skin, called by me the ovigerous frena, which serve, through the means of a sticky secretion, to retain the eggs until they are hatched within the sack.