of the Anatomy of the Squalus Maximus. 229 



Maximus, being so different from those of quadrupeds, explain 

 the general principle on which the hepatic ducts in fishes, whose 

 livers are loaded with oil, are formed. The substance of their 

 liver is so exceedingly tender, that this contrivance is em- 

 ployed to prevent the bile from being forced back into the 

 liver, which is not found necessary in the solid livers of land 

 animals. * 



The heart was particularly examined, and the annexed 

 drawing (PI. XVIII.) shews its internal cavities, and the valves 

 of the branchial artery; more particularly a muscular structure 

 met with in the coats of that vessel, extending for some way 

 after it leaves the ventricle. 



The situation of the kidneys is mentioned in my former 

 account; the ureters open into the cavity, common to the 

 urine and semen, by two orifices, three quarters of an inch in 

 diameter. 



The structure of the body of the testicles had been de- 

 stroyed; the epididymis consisted of innumerable convolutions 

 of a tube three-eighths of an inch in diameter, at the upper 

 part coiled up into two or three lobes or masses, which could 

 not be unravelled, from which the vas deferens went off, mak- 

 ing irregular convolutions down towards the anus. The lower 

 part for three feet in length is straight, and the canal seven 

 inches in diameter, having broad valvulae conniventes; the 

 widest are near the termination, and are two inches and a half 

 broad. The contents of this portion, as I have remarked in 

 my former paper, are different from those of the epididymis, 

 and upper portion of the vas deferens, being a substance like 

 starch broken down into rounded portions in a thinner fluid. 



This circumstance leads to the idea, that the straight portion 



Hha 



