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 melanogaster 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. anhinga, 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 cesophagus. 
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 Tn the proventricular glands being limited to distinct areas, which do not 
unite to form a zone, Plotus Jevaillanti and P. melanogaster resemble the genus 
Phalacrocorax. 
2 Cf. Bartleti, P. Z. 8. 1881, p. 247. 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1882, No. XIV. 14 
