ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 415 



ilium (130. C. a.) in the colon (130. C. a.) resembling in 

 form the appendix vermiformis of man and the highest qua- 

 drumana. At the cardiac orifice of the stomach in the wom- 

 bat, as in the beaver, there is a large and complex gastric 

 gland,, forming a close analogy between this part and the 

 glandular infundibulum of birds, and especially required in 

 these quadrupeds from the very coarse nature of their 

 food. 



The high development of all the organs of relation in car- 

 nivorous quadrupeds, enables them to select and obtain the 

 kind of food which requires least elaboration from digestive 

 organs for its assimilation to their body ; and their salivary, 

 muciparous, and other chylopoietic glands, are comparative- 

 ly small ; their oesophagus wide from their imperfect masti- 

 cation, their stomach, simple, small and membranous ; their 

 intestine short and narrow ; the colon small, and the coecum- 

 coli very short and narrow, or entirely wanting. The villi of 

 their long muscular tongue acquire often the density of 

 spines, the thick muscular fasciculi of their strong resopha- 

 gus have often a spiral course round that wide tube; the 

 soft mucous lining of their membranous stomach presents 

 no perceptible epithelium, and all trace of the ordinary 

 ccecum- and valvula-coli has entirely disappeared in the plan- 

 tigrade forms of these animals. The deeply lobated liver of 

 the carnivora is always provided with a moderate gall-bladder, 

 which sends its duct into the duodenum at a very short dis- 

 tance from the pylorus. The spleen has commonly a 

 lengthened narrow form with numerous round white inter- 

 nal corpuscules, and the two unequal lobes of the pancreas 

 are subdivided into smaller distinct lobules, which pour 

 their secretion into the duodenum, generally by two separate 

 ducts, a little beyond that of the gall-bladder. 



The surface of the free and lengthened tongue of the insec- 

 tivorous bats, is likewise often provided with firm and sharp 

 spines, and their stomach, like that of most carnivora, qua- 

 drumana and man, forms generally a simple membranous 

 globular or pyriform sac, with a small coecal portion to the 

 left of the cardia ; but in the frugivorous pteropi, as in the 

 more elevated semnopitheci, the stomach forms a capacious 

 lengthened saculated cavity, puckered and winding like the 

 colon of a herbivorous quadruped or the stomach of a kan- 



