LIVER OF FISHES. 427 



obliquely down in front of the stomach as far as the duodenum, 

 when each of the ducts opens by a separate oblique orifice into a 

 common cavity, ib. m, of an oval form, communicating with the 

 duodenum by a single opening. 



The gall-bladder is usually situated towards the fore-part of 

 the liver, and attached to the right lobe when this exists, as in 

 fig. 276, m. In some Cyprinoids and Rays, and in the Sturgeon, 

 it is imbedded in the substance of the liver. In many Chsetodonts 

 and Salmonoids, in the Sword-fish, fig. 282, c, in the Eel and the 

 Muraena, it hangs freely at some distance from the liver. I found 

 the gall-bladder three inches from the liver in a Lophius of two 

 feet in length. The size of the gall-bladder varies in different 

 Fishes ; it is very small in most Rays : in Osseous Fishes it 

 usually bears a direct relation to that of the liver itself. It is 

 pyriform in the Lophius, Mullet, Sea-perch (Sebastes), Pike, 

 Sturgeon, Planirostra, and most other Fishes : it is subspherical 

 in the Grey-shark ( Galeus), and in the Wolf-fish : it is like a 

 long-necked flask in Polypterus ; is bent like a retort in Xiphias, 

 ib. c : and is remarkably long and slender in Scicena, Upeneus, 

 Lates nobilis, and in the Bonito, the Tunny, and other Scombridce. 

 The bile is sometimes conveyed to the gall-bladder, fig. 291, c, by 

 hepato-cystic ducts, ib. d, d, and thence by a cystic duct, ib. e, into 

 the duodenum (Wolf-fish, Erythrinus, Lepidosiren) : or it passes at 

 once to the intestine by a single hepatic duct, formed by the union 

 of several branches from the liver (Zi/ace?ia, where the duct is very 

 long) : or by two hepatic ducts opening separately into the intestine, 

 as in Pristis : or an hepatic duct from the left lobe joins a cystic duct 

 from the bladder, receiving the gall from the right lobe, and the 

 secretion is conveyed by a ' ductus comniunis choledochus ' into the 

 duodenum, as in Pimelodus : or the bile is conveyed to the duode- 

 num partly by a cystic duct and partly by a distinct hepatic^duct, 

 as in the Salmon, in which the latter dilates before it terminates. 

 In the Lophius three hepatic ducts join the very long cystic, which 

 duct sometimes dilates where it receives them. In the Sword- 

 fish three or four hepatic ducts communicate with the cystic, 

 to form the ductus communis, fig. 282, b. In the Turbot there 

 are more numerous hepatic ducts, some of which communicate 

 with different parts of the cystic duct, and four open into the 

 dilated termination of the ductus communis. 1 In the Galeus the 

 cystic duct runs some way through the substance of the liver, and 

 sometimes between the tunics of the pyloric canal of the stomach, 



1 xx. vol. i. prep. no. 811 A. 



