OCCURRENCE OF THE MAIGRE. 



163 



in so small a space, is well calculated to excite ouv admiration. 



In the dissection, which Fig. 3 illustrates, the upper half of this part 

 of the intestine has been laid open; the gut being suspended by two large 



hooks which were found loose in the stomach, pro- 

 bably belonging to a huge and partially decomposed 

 cod-fish also in the same situation; in this manner 

 we have exposed a series of valvular folds, which 

 being incomplete in the centre, leave a narrow 

 canal, scarcely larger than that of the duodenum, 

 by which the excrementitious parts of the ingesta 

 are conveyed into the Cloaca, (o,) to be ultimately 

 expelled from the body. The valvular character of 

 these folds is better seen in the lower part of the 

 engraving, where a window-shaped portion of the 

 intestine has been cut away in order to shew also 

 the manner and point at which the folds terminate. 

 The import of this peculiar feature in the alimentary 

 system of Sharks, is, that by such an arrangement, 

 there is furnished an extensive surface of membrane 

 in order to meet the demands of a vigorous absorp- 

 tion, and at the same time this has been accomplished 

 without the incumbrance of numerous rolls of 

 intestine, which would entail serious inconvenience 

 upon a creature destined to make rapid progress 

 through so dense a medium as that in which it lives! 

 The only other viscera to which I propose to 

 allude are those concerned in the elimination of 

 urine. In Figure 2 the kidneys, (p, p,) appear as 

 elongated bodies, lying parallel to, and connected with, each other, by folds 

 of peritoneum ; their ureters unite into a common duct, and enter the bladder, 

 (r,) near its fundus, and this reservoir again finally empties itself into the 

 cloaca. Fearing lest this paper should become too lengthy, the author purposely 

 omits, for the present, entering upon the reproductive and other systems. 



Edinburgh, January, 1852. 



OCCURRENCE OF THE FISH CALLED 

 MAIGRE, (SOKENA AQUILA,) IN THE ORKNEY ISLANDS. 



BY ALEXANDER R. DUGUID, ESQ., M. D. 



On the 23rd. of December last,' while a man was employed in a boat in 

 Scapa Bay catching Sillocks, (the young of the Merlangus carbonanus,) he 

 observed some agitation on the surface of the water at a little distance, which 

 on a near approach he found to be ]MoIuced by the motion of a pretty large 



VOL. II. X 



