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 

 faeces 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 joins 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 

 branchiae ; 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 faecal 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. 



