40 PROF. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY OF THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS. 



after piercing the diaphragm, and terminates at the cardiac orifice about one foot five 

 inches from the left extremity of the stomach. This organ (PI. XI. figs. 1 & 2) pre- 

 sented the ordinary form of the simple stomach : it was moderately distended with 

 food ; with a large obtuse cardiac end, expanding to the cardiac orifice (fig. 2, c), 

 opposite to which it presented the greatest circumference ; thence contracting to near 

 the pylorus {ib. p), on the cardiac side of which the stomach presented its smallest 

 circumference ; and then expanding into a blind end, of a hemispheric form, beyond 

 the pylorus. The length of the stomach in a straight line was four feet ; its diameter 

 from the cardia to the opposite part of the great curvature was one foot ten inches. 

 The small curvature between the cardia and pylorus was one foot nine inches. There 

 was a glistening aponeurotic sheet {ib. a) upon the anterior and posterior surfaces of 

 the contracted pyloric end of the stomach. 



A sheet of white thick epithelium spreads from the cardia over the inner surface of 

 the cardiac portion of the stomach, about one foot four inches along the lesser cur- 

 vature, and along the greater curvature to the extent shown in figure 2, e. This epi- 

 thelial layer is one line thick, smooth, or with very fine rugae on its inner surface, and 

 terminating by a well-defined border, near which it is perforated by numerous orifices 

 of mucous follicles (Ib. fig. 4). The rest of the inner surface of the stomach pre- 

 sents the usual vascular structure, with the more minute orifices of the secerning fol- 

 licles of the gastric juice. There is no crescentic fold or valve at the cardia, as in the 

 Horse : nor is there any valvular protuberance on the gastric side of the pylorus, as in 

 the Cow and most other Ruminants : the thickened rim of the pylorus was slightly 

 produced into the duodenum. 



In the female Rhinoceros the stomach presented the same simple elongated form as 

 in the male, corresponding with the description of its external form given by Cuvier 

 (after Vicq. d'Azyr ?)'. Its total length in a straight line was thirty-two inches, and 

 the distance from the cardia to the left extremity was fourteen inches. It was distended 

 with a mass of coarsely divided hay mixed with oats. The whole of the cardiac extre- 

 mity, excepting at one small spot, was lined with a smooth compact layer of thickened 

 epithelium, like that in the male : it extended along the upper or smaller curvature of 

 the stomach half-way between the cardia and the pylorus ; its greatest extent from the 

 left end of the stomach being twenty-two inches. The boundary-line between this and 

 the glandular or mucous coat of the stomach was even, but as abrupt and well-marked 

 as in the Horse. The epidermis was very easily detached, and in some places had sepa- 

 rated spontaneously, as does the thick epithelial lining of a gizzard soon after death, and 

 it is probable that such spontaneous separation of the cuticle in the Rhinoceros dissected 

 by Mr. Thomas may have induced the belief that it was wanting in that animaP. The 



' Lemons d'Anat. Comp. iii. (1805) p. 392. 



'-' "The stomach upon its inside was in every part covered by a secreting surface; whereas in the Horse it 

 is partly cuticular." — Plidos. Trans. 1801, p. HI. 



