236 DENTALIADZ. 
contact with one end of the branchiz. That naturalist cer- 
tainly connects the two organs by stating, as I think erro- 
neously, that the heart sends great and numerous vessels to 
the branchiz. Now, the heart never transmits blood directly 
to the branchiz, but impels it mto the system by arteries and 
veins, from whence, as I have already stated, it reverts to 
those organs. 
The filaments in dispute I have submitted to microscopical 
observation ; they only present the appearance of a compli- 
cated mass without a trace of particular arterial and branchial 
vessels, and they have nothing lke the symmetry of branchiee ; 
I believe them to be merely secreting glands, and they may 
perhaps combine tentacular functions. 
M. Deshayes is, I think, in error in stating that the aliment 
undergoes a second mastication: this idea has arisen from his 
having divided the gizzard into two parts, one of which he 
describes as “ miachoires,” and the other as an “ appareil 
dentaire assez compliqué:”’ the fact is, there are no hard 
parts in the buccal pouch ; which, when removed, there beng 
no internal cesophagus, exposes to view the anterior part of 
the gizzard, which is likened to two spherical black points 
gaping like a small bivalve: these are only part and parcel of a 
whole—the gizzard,—which may almost be called the stomach 
itself, as it fills the entire stomachal membrane, with the 
exception of the convoluted intestine at its base ; consequently 
the aliment has no other mastication but of one denticular 
apparatus. 
That there are no errors in these observations would be an 
undue assumption; for who, on such subjects and in the 
examination of these minute objects, can hope to escape from 
occasional error? I invite malacologists to offer their cor- 
rections, if I have differed on insufficient grounds from so 
eminent a naturalist as M. Deshayes; and I conclude with 
the evocation, 
..... Si quid novisti rectius istis, 
Candidus imperti. 
