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. e.), agrees best with my observations. He 
says :—‘‘ Deux paires des canaux dont il s’agit viennent aboutir sepa- 
rément dans la bouche en se rendant a deux poches situées auprés 
de la symphyse mentonniére ; la ¢rotsiéme paire verse un peu en 
arriére, également 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 (‘ Mé- 
moires’ &c. pp. v and 88) that there are only ¢wo 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. 3c). 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, 6) which debouch intothem. This 
may easily explain, therefore, Pouchet’s only, having found ¢wo 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 ‘wo, 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, 
1 Ann, Sci. Nat. 5, (Zool.) xiii. art. no. 9. 
2 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- 
dua, according to Chatin’s figure (op. cit. pl. 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* 
