310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



pliragm. In many genera, the right hepatic sheet is connected with 

 the stomach, especially at its proximal part. 



Besides the hepatic and gastric mesenteries, there are those which 

 enclose the internal genitalia, the urinary bladder, and the corpora 

 adiposa. The genital mesentery is sometimes quite extensively 

 free, and is always so anteriorly, especially where it supports the 

 wide fontanelle of the oviduct. A mesenteric pouch encloses the 

 corpora adij^osa, only in those forms where those bodies project 

 freely into the abdominal cavity, as is frequently the case. The 

 cystic mesentery is a transverse fold of the peritoneum whicli lines 

 the inferior wall of the pelvic cavity, which encloses the urinary 

 bladder, when it is present. 



Beddard has stated that in the genus Varanus there is a " hori- 

 zontal sheet" of mesentery between the viscera and the abdominal 

 peritoneum. This is an interpretation of the fact that the abdominal 

 peritoneum is loosely attached to the abdominal muscular sheaths, 

 and is readily separated from them. This sheet, however, presents 

 the usual relation of the abdominal peritoneum to the viscera, as 

 Beddard states, and appears to me to be homologous with it.* The 

 same condition caused Giinther^ to state that in Regenia ocellata the 

 corpora adiposa are enclosed in " a separate sac of the peritoneum," 

 whereas the former are not enclosed in a special sac as in some 

 other genera. 



In the Chamseleonidae the mesenteries include the usual hepato- 

 ventral, epigastric, gastrohepatic and right hepatic, the last includ- 

 ing the right lung. The left lung is included in a left hepatogastric, 

 a feature seen in few other groups, notably in the Anoline Iguanidre. 

 There is also a left hepatolateral, from the liver to the left body 

 wall, having a direction diagonal to the long axis of the liver in C. 

 basiliscus. 



In the Nyctisaura I have been able to examine the mesenteries in 

 relatively few genera of the superfamily. I find in both Gecconidae 

 and Eublepharidse the structure to be of the type most frequent in 

 the Sauria ; i. e. ; a simple hepatoventral ; a single gastrohepa- 

 tic ; a left gastropulmonary ; and a right hepatic which embraces 

 the right lung. 



In the Agamidse the mesenteries present the usual sheets, hepato- 

 ventral, gastrohepatic, left gastropulmonary and right hepatic, 



'Proc. Zool. Soc, London, 1888, p. 98. 

 'Loc.cit., 1861, March. 



