134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [l^^l. 



somewhat discordant, without, however, intending to throw dis- 

 credit upon any of them. 



A Peccary having died at the Zoological Garden the same day 

 that the Hippopotamus arrived there, a favorable opportunity 

 presented itself of comparing the stomachs of the two animals. 

 While externally the stomach of the Peccary is not subdivided to 

 any great extent, internally through the elevation of the mucous 

 membrane into two ridges, three compartments, cardiac, middle 

 and p3'loric, may be distinguished. The cardiac portion further 

 subdivided at its termination into two blind pouches, opens into the 

 middle division of the stomach ; the latter receives the oesophagus 

 and communicates with the pyloric part. Conceive the ridges 

 and the cardiac pouches in the stomach of the Peccary greatly 

 enlarged and we would have the stomach of a small Hippopotamus. 

 On the other hand, diminish the first two stomachs of the Hippo- 

 potamus to mere blind pouches, at the same time increasing the 

 constriction between the third and fourth ones and we have, with- 

 out any stretching of the imagination, the stomach of the Manatee. 

 Beginning with the Pig the transition from that form of the 

 stomach through the Babyrussa ' to that of the Peccary is an easy 

 one. The latter again, leads to the Hippopotamus, which in turn 

 anticipates on the one hand the Manatee and on the other the 

 Ruminant type. 



Vascular System. — The circulation of the blood in the Hippo- 

 potamus was first studied by Gratiolet. The result of his careful 

 investigation was the subject of a special communication to the 

 Academy of Sciences, which appeared in the Comptes Rendus^^ 

 several years before the publication of his more general work by 

 Dr. Alix, A good account of the heart is also given by Crisp.^ 

 With the exception of the above accounts, little or no attention 

 seems to have been given to the study of the circulation by those 

 anatomists who have dissected the common variety of Hippopota- 

 mus, DaiibentoH ^ devoting merely a few lines to the heart, while 

 the later writers do not mention the circulation at all. Macalester ^ 

 mentions one or two peculiarities about the blood-vessels in the 

 Ch(]eropsis. Although I have nothing particularly to add to 

 •Gratiolet's excellent description, inasmuch as the subject of his 



1 Vrolik, op. cit., p. 240. ^ Tome 11, p. 524, 1860, 1867. 



3 Op. cit., p. 609. * Op. cit., p. 57. ^ Op. cit., p. 495. 



