414 ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 



(130, B. c), from the sides of which two small tapering cceca 

 (ISO, B. d) are extended, as from the colon of most birds. 

 The transverse valvula coli is seen at the entrance of the 

 ilium into the first wide coecum, but the second tapering cceca 

 are without valves. The two cceca-coli are seen also in the 

 ant-eater and the lamantin, but are placed at commencement 

 of the colon in these animals; they are small, without valves, 

 and with narrow contracted openings in the myrmecophaga, 

 as in birds. The stomach of the myrmecophaga, like that 

 of echidna and ornithorhyncus, presents the simplest undi- 

 vided form of this cavity, but is more strong and muscular, 

 like the gizzard of a bird or of a crocodile, to compensate 

 for the want of teeth. In the sloths the left half of the 

 stomach is sacculated by internal partition like that of sem- 

 nopitheci among the quadrumana, and its pyloric half is 

 puckered and spirally convoluted like that of a kangaroo. 



Among the diversified forms of marsupialia, the carnivorous 

 dasyuri and the insectivorous didelphes and perameles have 

 a membranous stomach and a short alimentary canal, like 

 the dentated quadrupeds of similar food belonging to other 

 orders. In the kangaroos the stomach (130, D.) is almost 

 as complicated as that of the ruminantia, which they repre- 

 sent in Australia, and which they can partially imitate in the 

 rumination of their food; it is spirally convoluted, deeply 

 divided by transverse contractions, lined with epidermis, 

 puckered by three longitudinal bands like the colon of 

 pachyderma, sacculated by large cells (130, D. d) developed 

 from its sides, with a tapering winding coecum (130, D. b) 

 nine inches long, extending to the left of the cardiac orifice 

 (130, D. ), and provided with two rows of large glands 

 opening into its pyloric portion. The stomach is nearly 

 similar in the hypsiprymnus, but less lengthened and divided, 

 and with the gastric glands disposed in a single lengthened 

 narrow mass on the left portion of the cavity. The intestine 

 of the kangaroo corresponds in its great length and convo- 

 lutions with the coarse vegetable food, and the coecum-coli 

 is about fifteen inches in length. The coecum-coli of the 

 wombat (130. C.), a marsupial rodent with some affinities 

 to the beaver, forms a short and wide cavity (130. C. c.), 

 and has a remarkable small narrow appendix (130. C. d.) 

 opening by a valvular orifice close to the termination of the 



