386 
I have dissected different portions of it with some care, and 
shall lay before the Academy, at the present Meeting, a sec- 
tion of the recent skull, also the brain, and a minute dissec- 
tion of the nerves of the proboscis on one side. As my time 
has been limited, and much engaged with other matters, I 
shall not enter into a minute examination of these parts, but 
merely exhibit such striking characters and peculiarities as 
are likely to engage the attention of those who are not fully 
acquainted with the subject. I may observe that, in the 
course of my dissections, I have ascertained some points which 
I do not find noticed by preceding writers, and others which 
have been stated differently from what I have found. Thus, 
among the ocular appendages, the membrana nictitans, or third 
eye-lid, presents some interesting relations ; in the orbit I do 
not find any retrahens oculi muscle, as is to be inferred from the 
descriptions in books; I also observe a second external rectus 
muscle. In the ear also I find a peculiar arrangement of the 
muscles of the ossicula auditus ; and I see no evidence of the 
muscular structure of the membrana tympani, so accurately 
described by Sir E. Home in the Philosophical Transactions, 
and mentioned by subsequent writers, who seem to have 
adopted his opinions, rather than to have examined the organ 
for themselves. In the thorax I have remarked the absence 
of the pleural or serous membranes; and I find the lungs are 
connected to the parietes by a great quantity of filamentous 
and yellow tissue, yielding and elastic. I have also discovered 
a remarkable muscle extending from the back part of the 
trachea to the cesophagus, near its passage through the dia- 
phragm, of which I can find no previous notice. The rudi- 
mentary condition of the gall bladder in the abdomen, as well 
as the mucous membrane of the small intestines, and the re- 
productive male organs, present certain peculiarities, which do 
not appear to me to have received sufficient attention. I shall 
not allude further to any of these points at present, but as time 
permits me to complete their examination, and to prepare 
suitable illustrations, I hope to place some additional remarks 
