466 MR. G. W. BUTLER ON THE SUBDIVISION OF [Nov. 19, 
median ventral ligament behind it, and take a more or less oblique 
course across the liver. Sometimes there is more than one such on 
a side. 
I would call these the oblique ligaments of the liver. 
These ligaments, when present, appear, in certain cases, to be 
continuous with the membranes that bear the forward continuations 
of the Miillerian ducts (oviducts), and are specially noticeable in 
the case of the Chameleon, where they form broad sheets of mem- 
brane constituting a kind of ventral diaphragm *. 
The oblique ligaments can be traced in Lacerta, Uromastyz, 
Ameiva, Chameleon, and others, but their number, distribution, and 
degree of development is different in different forms; and I call 
attention to them chiefly on account of the light they may throw 
on the nature of certain membranes in the Crocodiles. There are in 
these animals (cf. p. 469) certain well-defined ventral ligaments of 
the liver, which completely mark off the more median portion of 
each lobe from its antero-lateral corner, and seem to correspond to 
these inconspicuous ligaments in 2 Lacertilia, but not truly to 
anything in Birds. 
Tam inclined to regard such akc ligaments as complementary 
to the pulmo-hepatic ligaments; that is, to consider that they serve 
to unite the liver to the body-wall in those forms in which the tissue 
corresponding to the avian diaphragm, to which the last-mentioned 
ligaments are attached, does not itself become attached to the body- 
wall. 
The more or less marked folds of peritoneum, which carry the 
forward continuations of the Miillerian ducts, seem (cf. p. 462) to 
mark the line along which an avian diaphragm might be expected 
to arise; and they probably exercise one of the functions of a 
diaphragm, in rendering a certain protection to the lungs; but I 
would not advocate any closer homology between these membranes 
and the diaphragms of either Birds or Mammals. 
The relation of the lungs to the body-cavity in the Monitors is 
referred to in my paper on the “ Fat-bodies,” to be subsequently 
read, and I have nothing further to add here. 
(6) The Teiida. 
The condition in Tupinambis teguixin (Tejus teguexim, Gray) is 
very interesting. 
We have here (¢f. Plate XLVIII. figs. 31-34) a post-hepatie 
septum (/3), apparently homologous with the ventral (or so-called 
‘omental ’’) portion of the post-hepatic septum in birds (the ventral 
side of which is shown in fig. 29, ), and perhaps to the greater 
part of the post-hepatic septum in Crocodiles (figs. 40—43, @). 
This well-marked post-hepatic septum at first strikes the observer 
? Such oblique ligaments do in their adult relations rather suggest part of 
the embryonic mammalian diaphragm. ‘They attach the liver to the body-wall 
posterior iy and ventrally to the attachment of the liver to the lungs or media- 
stinum (compare with this Plate XLVI. fig. 4, dph.). 
