VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SGS 



nor was the true stomach capable of that extension as these were. The 

 whole length of the oesophagus was 2 feet 3^^ inches; the length of the proper 

 stomach (g) 5 inches, lying in a straight line with the oesophagus, but thicker 

 than it, having a remarkable coat more on the inside, easily distinguishable by 

 its colour, substance and plicae, and jetting over the inside of the gullet; and 

 in all respects as in the viper. From the pylorus the duct (fig. 2. g,) straight 

 again for 1-^ inch; and then formed a large intestine, (e, e, e,) which afforded a 

 pleasant sight, by the weaved rugae of its inward coat ; which gut after some 

 small windings, ended at last in the rectum, (f, f, f,) whose capacity was much 

 less than the former. In the stomach and guts I observed abundance of lumbrici 

 teretes, which is a disease vipers likewise are subject to. The whole length from 

 the throat to the anus is but one continued ductus; though often variously, 

 distinguished, according to nature's different intention in the several species of 

 animals. 



But since in that promiscuous food they take in, which they swallow always 

 whole, there are often some parts unfit to be digested, and therefore to be re- 

 turned again; (the gullet here being very long, and upon that account incommo- 

 dious for this action ;) nature has provided these swellings in it, where they may 

 be respited, till recovering its force, it gives them another lift, and upon a third 

 effort at last wholly ejects them. And if what is confidently reported by many, 

 be true, that on occasion of danger they receive their young into their mouths, 

 these are fit places for receiving them.* 



The food before it can prove aliment, must be comminuted, and broken into 

 the smallest particles; which in these membranous stomachs, I cannot see how 

 it can be performed, but by corrosion. A principal menstruum in doing this, I 

 take to be that liquor, which is discharged by the glands that are seated in some 

 at the beginning of the throat, and are called salival, or just above the stomach 

 or gizzard of birds, and called the echinus, or in others in the stomach itself, 

 and called the glandulous coat ; and such I take the inward coat of the stomach 

 of our rattle-snake to be.-)' 



When comminuted it is discharged into the guts; which, that the chyle might 

 not pass off with the faeces, are often convoluted, or winding, as here, (fig. 2. 



* Of this we have the attestation of Mons. Beauvois, who, (in the 4th vol. of the American 

 Philosophical Transactions) declares himself an eye-witness of the process, having seen a large 

 female rattle-snake, which he happened to disturb in his walks, open her mouth and receive 5 young 

 ones down her throat, which in about a quarter of an hour she again discharged : on his approaching 

 a second time, the same circumstance again took place, and the snake made its escape. 



t Modern physiologists have shown that this conjecture respecting the agency of a solvent liquor 

 «r menstruum (the gastric juice) in the process of digestion, is well founded. 



