1882.] ANATOMY OF THE INDIAN DARTER. 209 



male, lived in excellent health till December 21st last, when it died 

 suddenly, its death apparently having been caused by some sudden 

 shock produced by too rapid feeding, as a dozen small fishes, just 

 swallowed, were found in its stomach. No disease whatever could 

 be found. It is this specimen that forms the subject of the present 

 communication. 



As regards its stomach, Plotus melanog aster closely approaches P. 

 levaillanti, the proventriculus being in the form of two quite separate 

 patches, and the pyloric lobe being provided with a similar hair- 

 covered conical and retractile " plug." In P. anhing a, it will be 

 remembered, the proventricular glands are collected together into a 

 special diverticulum of the stomach, whilst the pyloric lobe, though 

 hairy internally, has no such plug. In P. melanogaster the two 

 gland-patches have the form of watch-pockets, which nearly, though 

 not quite, unite with each other superiorly. They measure 1 • 1 inch 

 transversely and "8 inch from above downwards, being thus a little 

 larger than the similarly shaped and situated ones of P. levaillanti '. 

 There is no trace of the elevated " U-shaped ridge " situated on the 

 anterior wall of the stomach between the two patches, described and 

 figured by Prof. Garrod in the last-named species. The gland- 

 patches are covered, as is the rest of the interior of the stomach, by 

 the usual yellow wrinkled "epithelium." This ceases abruptly 

 above at the level of the upper margins of the glandular areas, where 

 it meets the smooth and pink mucous membrane of the oesophagus. 

 Along this line of junction, the epithelial coat is thicker and jagged, 

 an appearance probably due to several thicknesses of this coat having 

 been " moulted " (as we know happens in the American species) and 

 not come clean away'^. 



The second, or pyloric, stomach is quite as distinct in Plotus mela- 

 nogaster as it is in the two other species of the genus dissected. 

 Like these, too, its pyloric half is covered internally with the pecu- 

 liar hairy mat already described in these birds : the cardiac part, on 

 the other hand, is covered by a yellow " epithelium " continuous 

 with that of the rest of the stomach. The hairy covering forms 

 a complete ring, thickest and best developed inferiorly — on the sur- 

 face corresponding to the "greater curvature" of the Mammalian 

 stomach — and quite surrounding the equally hairy pyloric plug. 

 This " plug " is not a free process : it is rather a well-defined ridge, 

 nearly cylindrical in section, attached superiorly to the wall of the 

 stomach, but ending freely below. It, particularly towards its ter- 

 mination, is thickly covered with hairs of a similar character to those 

 in the rest of the hairy region. When fully retracted, it completely 

 fills up the centre of the hairy ring already described, the communi- 

 cation of the cavities of the stomach and duodenum being reduced 

 to a narrow aperture situated below the plug, and only capable of 

 allowing the passage of a bristle. 



1 In the proTentricular glands being limited to distinct areas, -which do not 

 unite to form a zone, Plotus levaillanti and P. melanogaster resemble the genus 

 Phalacrocorax. 



2 Cf. Bartlett, P. Z. S. 1881, p. 247. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1882, No. XIV. 14 



