DENTALIUM. 233 
gizzard. The intestine does not entwine with the liver, but is 
enclosed within the same cavity as the gizzard ; it pierces its 
enclosure on the right side, passes through the liver, and 
discharges the rejectamenta at the base of the branchial cavity, 
under the mantle about the middle of the shell, from whence 
they are passed, by the deep groove of the foot, which the 
animal can, by the compression of its sides, make canaliferous, 
as far as the middle section of the foot, around which, when 
the animals are fresh from the sea, they form repeated collars 
of mucus, which in a short time, from frequent aggregations 
of matter, become ponderous, break and fall off, and when 
examined are found to be composed of the spoil of shells : 
this circumstance, independent of all others, shows that the 
feeces are not discharged posteriorly. 
The liver is an extremely scanty light yellowish-green 
organ placed under the stomach, and is continued under the 
branchial cavity, and then joms the ovarium, with which it 
becomes almost imperceptibly amalgamated throughout its 
whole length. The ovarium is very long and large, and fills 
up the whole of the posterior part of the body from the 
branchize ; it consists of from four to six longitudinal rows of 
distinct granular yellowish-white masses of ova, with scanty 
interweavings of the liver, which exhibit three stages of de- 
velopment ; the more forward ones become broken into six 
portions, and when ready for exclusion these again break into 
perfectly round, pale brown globules; all these phases vary in 
different animals according to the advancement of fecunda- 
tion. The oviduct is in the centre of the longitudinal rows of 
ova, formed by their junction, and the ova are undoubtedly 
discharged by the posterior spoon-shaped process, from whence 
I have seen volleys of fifty or a hundred ejected with con- 
siderable force in minute round points: these must not be 
mistaken for fecal pellets, neither must the oviduct be con- 
founded with the branchial canal, which is the cavity formed 
between the mantle and the membrane of the ovarium. The 
homogeneity of the masses of this part of the body in many 
conditions, especially when fecundation is not far advanced, 
