THE NORTHERN RIBBON-FISH. 19 
Internal Anatomy. 
Neither of our spirit specimens was in a condition tv admit of detailed 
anatomical research. In both the brain was shrivelled up, the cranial nerves 
torn, and the muscles soft and pulpy. We can at best only describe and figure a 
few of the viscera. 
Alimentary Canal.—The wide cesophagus, laterally compressed in relation to 
the narrow slit-like form of the body-cavity, merges insensibly by the development 
of thickened muscular walls with large, thin mucous folds or ridges, in the first or 
cardial portion of the stomach. The latter runs straight backwards, and terminates 
in a tapering cecal pouch, closely bound down to the underlying intestine, about six 
inches from the anus. 
fig. 7. Diagram or Atimentary Canat (x 3). 
@s., esophagus ; st. 1, first chamber of stomach ; st. 2, second chamber of stomach, with pyloric ceca; int., intestine ; 
x, position of intestinal valve. 
About three inches in front of the cecal end, a wide orifice on the ventral side 
leads into the second or pyloric chamber. This is bent sharply on the former portion, 
and runs parallel to and below it to near the anterior extremity of the body-cavity. 
The pyloric chamber is about seven and a-half inches long. Through the orifice 
before referred to, about seven of the mucous folds pass for about three-fourths of an 
inch into the pyloric chamber; at the point where they end the lumen suddenly 
widens, and the internal surface becomes honeycombed in appearance, by reason of 
the numerous orifices of the pyloric cecal appendages. These ceca surround the 
pyloric chamber in its whole length, and are more numerous above and below than 
laterally ; they are simple unbranched tubes, on the average about an inch in length, 
and number altogether nearly 500. 
At the anterior end of the pyloric chamber a small aperture, set in a valvular 
papilla, leads into the intestine, which, bending upwards for a very short distance, 
turns sharply back, and runs backward on the right side of the stomach, to which it 
is closely attached by mesentery. The intestine is divided into an anterior and a 
shorter posterior portion by a valve, which occurs on a level with the cardio-pyloric 
orifice. At this poimt in the intestine the mucous membrane is reflected into a 
single valvular partition, with a slightly projecting median aperture, whose lips 
point backwards. The intestine in general is excessively thin-walled. Its mucous 
