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XXV. On the Anatomy of some of the Organs of Deglutition 

 in the Capybara {Hydrochcerus Capybara). By John Morgan, 

 Esq. F.L.S. 



Read June 15, 1830. 



The very great advantage which a zoologist derives from the 

 study of comparative anatomy, in the systematic arrangement 

 of the different genera and species composing the animal king- 

 dom, must be acknowledged by every one who has turned his 

 attention to this branch of natural science ; and it will therefore 

 be unnecessary that I should offer any apology for presenting 

 the Linnaean Society with a paper upon a subject almost exclu- 

 sively anatomical. 



The details of my present communication may perhaps appear 

 of trivial importance ; but as the dissections I have to describe 

 are, I believe, entirely new, and as it is probable that the pub- 

 lication of new anatomical facts (although insulated and appa- 

 rently of little interest in themselves) may eventually form a 

 groundwork for the more important discoveries of our successors, 

 I am induced to lay before this Society a short account of some 

 anatomical peculiarities hitherto undescribed, which I have met 

 with in dissecting certain organs connected with the process of 

 digestion in several species of the order Rodentia. It is now 

 more than a twelvemonth since I examined the body of a Capy- 

 bara, one of the largest animals of the order to which it belongs, 

 and in which therefore I conclude that the prominent distin- 



3 o 2 guishing 



