FISHES. 341 



The gull-bladder is present in the greater number of 

 fishes ; but in a few species, as the lamprey, its presence 

 has not been detected. In the Squalus maximus, the duct 

 is dilated at its termination in the intestine. The bile varies 

 greatly in colour according to the species. In the thorn- 

 back and salmon it is yellowish white, and, when evapo- 

 rated, leaves a matter which has a very sweet and slightly 

 acrid taste, containing no resin. The bile of the carp and 

 eel is very green and very bitter, contains little or no albu- 

 men, but yields soda, resin, and a sweet acrid matter, simi- 

 lar to tbat which may be obtained from salmon bile. The 

 biliary ducts open separately into the intestine. The liver 

 of the cod, cut into small pieces, boiled in the stomach of 

 the same animal, and €aten with vinegar and pepper, is a 

 favourite dish in the northern islands of Scotland, and 

 termed Liver Mugg'ie. 



The vessels of the Absorbent System of fishes are analo- 

 gous to those of quadrupeds. They are, however, desti- 

 tute of valves, unless at their termination in the red veins, 

 and do not appear to possess conglobate glands. Dr Mon- 

 ro, to whom we are indebted for the first illustration of this 

 class of vessels, gives an interesting view of their arrange- 

 ment in the cod and the salmon *, 



" " The chief branches," he says, "■' of the lacteal vessels of the great 

 and small intestines, and which are smaller in proportion to the blood-ves- 

 sels, than in the Nantes pinnati of Linnj:us, run upwards in the mesentery, 

 almost parallel to each other, and near the mesenteric arteries. In their 

 whole course, they communicate by a vast number of small transverse ca- 

 nals. At the top of the abdomen, near the gall-bladder, the lacteals of the 

 stomach, and lymphatics of the spleen, liver, and intestinula cceca are added. 

 The chyle, mixed with the lymph of the assistant chylopoictic viscera, 

 passes upwards, and towards the right side, into a large receptacle conti- 

 guous to the gall-bladder, and between it and the right side and back part 

 of the lower end of the oesophagus. From the receptacle of the chyle, large 



