VISCERAL ANATOMY. 45 
The digestive tract itself is very simple. The walls of the oesophagus, 
as it enters the stomach, are thrown into about eight longitudinal corrugations 
that become confluent in part with the more numerous rugae of the lining of 
the stomach. These latter consist of about 16 deep ridges and more numerous 
shallow ones, running longitudinally. They become reduced to five or six 
thickened folds at the pylorus, where they end. 
The stomach (Plate 9, fig. 7) in its undistended condition, is subglobular and 
somewhat produced at the pyloric end as in Gymnura, though not to the extent 
figured by Dobson for Erinaceus. The cardiac portion shows no such extension 
as in Hrinaceus europeus. Peters has figured the stomach of Solenodon cubanus 
as a nearly globular organ with the pylorus very near the oesophagus. This 
is somewhat different from its appearance in S. paradoxus when undistended, 
and may not represent its true form. The greatest length of the stomach is 
about 37 mm., and the cardiac breadth about 25 mm. 
The small intestine merges with the large intestine so gradually that it is not 
possible to tell definitely where the two meet, but the thicker-walled portion 
following the last of the Peyer’s patches is here taken to be the large intestine. 
The total length of the intestine from the pylorus is about 1390 mm., or nearly 
four and one half times the length from the tip of the nose to the anus. In 
Gymnura it is about six times the length of head and body. The total length of 
the small intestine, from the pylorus to the last Peyer’s patch is 1200 mm., 
and the large intestine 190 mm. There is no indication of a caecum. The wall 
of the small intestine is seen under a lens to be thickly covered with villi which 
are arranged in more or less transverse zig-zag lines. There are some seven 
Peyer’s patches. The first is oval, about 8 by 5mm., and situated 132 mm. from 
the pylorus. At about 185 mm. after this are two smaller patches, one behind 
the other. A fourth about 14 by 8 mm., is found some 205 mm. posteriorly; a 
fifth after 250 mm. more, and a sixth, 11 by 5 mm. after 220 mm. The seventh 
and last is a large one about 1200 mm. from the pylorus. 
The course of the intestine from the pylorus is back along the right hody 
wall for about 50 mm., then across to the left side, and thence again posteriorly 
for some 25 mm., after which it turns ventrally and becomes much convoluted 
in the lower abdominal region. It then passes forward along the left side of 
the body and is again much convoluted below the stomach, whence the large 
intestine, after a short curve (‘transverse colon’’) runs directly back along the 
dorsal body wall to the anus. 
The structure of the liver (Plate 9, figs. 3, 10) is comparatively simple. The 
