148 



imbedded in a quantity of ,loose filamentous tissue, containing nume- 

 rous fat-globules in its meshes. 



Glands around the anal orifice. 



The openings of these glands were rather larger than those just de- 

 scribed, and equal in width to any part of the cavity. The shape of 

 each gland indeed might be likened to a semicircle, the flat surface of 

 which would represent its mouth. The margins of these glands were 

 slightly elevated above the surface, and surrounded each by a single 

 layer of flattened epithelium. In structure, they resembled the 

 glands of the lateral line ; but the lining epithelial cells were larger 

 and more delicate, and the surrounding fibrous tissue more scanty 

 and fine. 



Fibrous tissue of the Skin proper. 



If a horizontal section of the skin be examined on its deep surface, 

 by means of a simple lens, numerous bundles of fibrous tissue will be 

 seen crossing each other at nearly right angles, so as to leave more or 

 less regular quadrilateral interspaces. The one series of these 

 fibres is circular, the other longitudinal, and both are placed some- 

 what obliquely, the latter more decidedly so than the former. These 

 bundles occur in alternate layers that commence and end with the 

 circular, which are somewhat larger and thicker than the longitu- 

 dinal. Each layer is distinct, as are also the individual bundles com- 

 posing it. 



Prepared vertical sections of the skin, magnified about two hundred 

 times linear, are best adapted for developing the structure and rela- 

 tions of this tissue. Examined by transmitted light, a section of this 

 kind exhibits from without inwards, — 1st, the germinal membrane and 

 its epithelium : 2nd, a layer of reticulated fibrous tissue, containing the 

 granular pigment in its meshes : 3rd, from fourteen to eighteen rolls or 

 bundles of fibrous tissue running nearly parallel to the surface of the 

 skin, traversed vertically — that is, from the outer to the inner surface 

 of the skin — by the wavy tubes of the follicles formerly described, and 

 by certain arctuous bands about to be noticed. 



These rolls or bundles of fibrous tissue run in a direction nearly pa- 

 rallel to each other ; their average diameter is about the T ^th of 

 an inch ; in shape they are irregularly rounded, quadrilateral, or flat- 

 tened ; and the extreme sides of each are marked by two irregular dark 



