1882.] MR. W. A. FORBES ON THE GREAT ANTEATER. 289 



with those of my predecessors, except as regards the number and 

 openings of the ducts to the submaxillary glands, regarding which 

 very different statements have been made at various times. Of these, 

 Gervais's description, as given in some remarks accompanying the 

 exhibition before the French Academy of Sciences of some models 

 of these glands (C. R. s. c), agrees best with my observations. He 

 says : — " Deux paires des canaux dont il s'agit viennent aboutir sepa- 

 r€ment dans la bouche en se rendant a deux poches situees aupres 

 de la symphyse mentonniere ; la troisieme paire verse un peu ea 

 arriere, egalement dans une petite dilatation terminale." 



A similar arrangement is described by J. Chatin in the genus 

 Tamandua^, except that he says that there are two openings on each 

 side at the symphysis. Pouchet, on the other hand, maintains (' Me- 

 moires ' &c. pp. v and 88) that there are only two ducts on each side, 

 one of these being formed by the confluence of two of the three pri- 

 mary ducts coming from the corresponding three lobes of which 

 each gland is composed. He only describes a single pair of openings 

 close to the symphysis. Owen, finally, describes the three ducts of 

 each side as eventually uniting, and opening, also by a single aperture, 

 close to the symphysis. 



An examination, however, of his specimen (now preserved in the 

 Hunterian Museum, where, by the kind permission of Prof. Flower, I 

 was allowed to examine it), demonstrates the existence of a second pair 

 of apertures in the floor of the mouth situated some 2 inches behind 

 the first pair, which lie immediately behind the symphysis, in this 

 respect quite agreeing with Gervais's description, and with my own 

 observations on the second of my (fresh) specimens (vide Plate XV. 

 fig. 3 c). This second pair of apertures, which lie close to each other on 

 each side of the median line and are very minute, are the openings of 

 the deeper ducts, which, one on each side, arise from the more anterior 

 (^cervical) portion of the gland'. As these lie quite behind the other 

 pair of apertures, any injection passed into the latter can of course 

 only fill the two pairs of ducts (a, b) which debouch into them. This 

 may easily explain, therefore, Pouchet's only having found two ducts 

 on each side, though it is possible that individual specimens may 

 vary in this respect. I must at least notice that in the first speci- 

 men that passed through my hands (the submaxillary ducts of which 

 were injected from the anterior pair of apertures alone), I found on 

 the left side a single duct only, and on the right two, which united 

 together at about the level of the articulation of the lower jaw. This 

 specimen, however, had, it is to be remembered, extensive inflamma- 

 tion in these parts, which may possibly have effected an alteration in 

 the relations and number of the ducts. It is pretty clear, however, 

 that three pairs all together is the ordinary number of these ducts, 



^ Ann. Sci. Nat. 5, (Zool.) xiii. art. no. 9. 



' Such was, at least, the condition in the only specimen of Myrmecophaga in 

 ■which these ducts had been satisfactorily injected examined by me. In Taman- 

 dtia, according to Chatin's figure {op. cit. pi. 14), it is the ducts from the 

 posterior {sternal) part of the gland that open here. This point requires re- 

 examination, as also the number of apertures anteriorly. 



20* 



