302 Zoological Society. 



being the outlet of a simple mass of follicular glands, it led to a wide, 

 flattened, winding sinus, and that its circumference was formed by the 

 termination of a membrane spirally disposed in about eight or ten 

 turns, and increasing in breadth at each gyration, having both sur- 

 faces covered with the orifices of numerous glandular follicles, and 

 the interspaces filled with a cream-like secretion. This structure, 

 which adds another peculiarity to the stomach of the Dugong, and 

 one met with in the ccccum only in a few other Mammalia, viz. that 

 of having its blind end occupied by a spiral membrane, I have found 

 in all the specimens dissected at the Society ; and in each case the 

 gland was infested by Ascarides, hereafter to be described, which 

 left impressions upon the spiral membrane. 



" The orifice leading to the pyloric cavity of the stomach is pro- 

 vided with a circular and valvular production of the inner membrane 

 of the stomach. Immediately beyond this valve are the orifices of 

 the two caecal appendages, situated 1£ inch apart at the upper and 

 rather towards the posterior side of the cavity ; these orifices were 

 about an inch in diameter, but the inferior orifice was the larger 

 of the two. Small quantities of comminuted sea weeds were found in 

 both these receptacles. 



" From the complexity of the stomach, the great extent of the 

 alimentary canal, its vast muscular power, and glandular appendages, 

 the digestive functions must be extremely vigorous in this animal. The 

 vigour of the digestive functions obviously relates, in the herbivorous 

 section of Cetacea, to the low organized indigestible character of their 

 nutriment ; but the complicated stomach and long intestinal canal of 

 the carnivorous Cetacea must have other relations than to the kind 

 of food. These modifications of the digestive system, for example, 

 cannot be so explained in the Grampus, which preys on the highly 

 organized Mammalia of its own class. It is not to the nature of 

 the food, but to the quantity of nutriment that is required to be 

 obtained from it, that I conceive the peculiarities of the digestive 

 system in the carnivorous Cetacea to relate. In no other Carnivora 

 is the same quantity of blood, the same mass of fat to be eliminated 

 from the raw material of the food : the digestive system is, there- 

 fore, perfected in these warm-blooded carnivorous Mammalia to 

 meet the contingencies of their aquatic life. 



" The omentum is continued from the great curvature both of the 



cardiac and pyloric divisions of the stomach ; though short, it is 



much more distinctly developed than in the carnivorous Cetacea ; it 



contains no adipose matter." 



Having described various other particulars connected with the chy* 



