132 



Dr. Hancock on the Mullets of Guiana^ 



The following is a sketch of the stomach of the grey mullet 

 of the natural size, the fish being a young one, fifteen inches ia 

 length, as it appears externally and internally, supposing it to 



be transparent ; — 



^ nh 10 ,Ui:g ed^ §"'(' 

 ^t lo bestanf ,rfof.n 



a The anterior part ; pyloric caeca, six or eight In number ; being reservoirs 



of chyle, or where chylification appears to be completed. 

 b The posterior part, cul de sac, or first receptacle of the food. 

 c The gullet, or esophagus. 

 d The intestine. 



e The central cavity of the stomach, or gizzard, surrounded by its thick 

 muscular wall, which has almost the consistence of cartilage, and has 

 the peculiar colour, density, and firmness, of the gizzard, or ventriculous 

 bulbosus in birds ; its lining membrane is rugous, and peels ofF, as in 

 those of fowls. 



/ The part next the spine, the figure being reversed, as the fish laid upon its 

 back when opened. 



The intestine, sixty-eight inches in length ; much sand in the 

 stomach — i. e., in the first and second cavities only ! — not a 

 particle of sand could be found beyond this, or in the whole 

 course of the intestinal canal, which below was filled with a 

 thick ingesta that seemed as it were only inspissated chyle, like 

 thick cream ; for it loses its colour entirely from the entrance 

 of the duodenum, or from the pyloric apparatus, reservoirs, or 

 caeca. These reservoirs are, in a mass, united at the base, 

 digitated or divided into several lobes, which are unequal, and 

 surround the insertion of the duodenum ; the gut, running up 

 between the spine and the stomach, is inserted into the anterior 

 part, or that next the mouth. In the M. cephalus, it consists, 



