16 LAWSON, ON LIMAX MAXIMUS. 
spaces between the strata. The second lamina is with diffi- 
culty prepared for examination; it is perfectly transparent, 
and, so far as I could observe, entirely devoid of epithelium, 
ciliated and non-ciliated, and perfectly structureless, seeming 
to be a kind of protective glazing, thrown out over the exter- 
nal coat. 
The stomach is an oval-shaped bag, of a dark-brown colour, 
into one end of which open together, the gullet and intestine, 
so that these latter appear almost continuous, and the stomach 
itself looks as though it were a diverticulum (fig. 1). It 
is placed in the centre of the antero-posterior plane, inclin- 
ing a little to the left; to its dextral end are attached the 
gullet and intestines, its sinistral extreme being free; it is 
supported by the foot and oviduct, has the ovary behind, the 
two bile-ducts in front, and the liver on either side and on 
its superior edges. Above, it is in relation to the inner surface 
of the integument only, and therefore it is one of the struc- 
tures seen on removing the dorsal covering. It is about + inch 
long, =°; inch deep, and 1 inch wide. As in the gullet, so 
here, we have two separate laminzee—the outer or muscular, 
the inner or mucous. The external coat is made up of three 
rather well-marked, muscular layers—circular, longitudinal, 
and oblique—which present the same appearance as those of 
the cesophagus, with this exception, that, whilst the nuclei in 
the fibres of the latter were short, in those of the stomach 
they are large, distinct, and fusiform; the inner layer is 
nothing more than a bed of oblong endoplasts, resting upon 
the outer; a zone of indifferent tissue, or a protomorphic line 
(to use Prof. Huxley’s expression), being interposed.* 
The intestine is a tube, musculo-membranous in character, 
as wide as the gullet for about one third of its length, but 
gradually diminishing in diameter as it approaches the anus; 
from this peculiarity, that portion of the gut which is nearest 
the stomachal cavity must be termed the larger, and the 
remaining division of the canal the smaller intestine. Except 
toward the anal aperture, it is of a dark, brownish-green 
colour, which is due in some measure to the vegetable and 
biliary contents. In its entirety it averages a length of seven 
inches, is of equal capacity with the gullet as it leaves the 
stomach, and measures not more than +!, inch at the anal 
orifice. It is better, in treating of its relations, to assume 
that it is a single tube, and in this way avoid the difficulty of 
drawing the exact line between the greater and lesser gut. 
The intestine, then, leaving the pyloric end of the stomach, 
travels obliquely, forwards and upwards, beneath the liver, and 
* T have not seen the spinous coat, so often alluded to in popular treatises 
on microscopic anatomy. 
