828 ME. p. E. BEDDABD ON THE [DeC. 3^ 



tbere has been but one general account of the anatomy of the soft 

 parts since the year 1825, when it was studied by Mayer i, who did 

 not, however, dii'ect attention to the special matters upon which I 

 desire to report in the present communication. Mayer dissected 

 three individuals, and he remarked upon the fact that in all of them 

 the alimentary canal for the greater part of the intestinal region 

 was beset with numerous small spherical cysts, which were mis- 

 taken by his predecessor Fermin for glands appended to the 

 aliraentarj^ tract, but which were recognized by Eudolphi as 

 encysted Nematodes. There is no doubt about this identification, 

 and I found them present in large numbers in both my specimens. 

 It is remarkable to find a parasite so invariably and so numerously 

 present in its host, though there are other similar instances, such 

 as the Gregarines in the sperm-sacs of the common Earthworm. 

 Mayer's paper deals not only with the abdominal viscera, but also 

 with the skeletal and muscular systems. There is, however, an 

 earlier paper - which is not without value ; in the plates appended 

 to this are illustrations of several of the viscera isolated from their 

 surroundings. More recently Klinckowstrom andGronberg^ have 

 desc "ibed and figured the structure of the skin, the larynx, the 

 blood-vessels and the brain, besides some of the other viscera more 

 or less incidentally. 



The two main lobes of the liver * are absolutely separated from 

 each other, the entire chamber enclosed by the suspensory ligaments 

 of the anterior abdominal veins intervening. Along one margin each 

 of the two lobes is firmly attached to the suspensory ligament of the 

 abdominal vein, to the " diaphragm " and to the lung. The left 

 half of the liver is rather larger than the right, and is partly divided 

 into two lobes. The globular gall-bladder is associated with the 

 right half of the liver ; it is partly covered over by it, and lies in 

 close contact with the membrane supporting the anterior abdo- 

 minal vein. 



The anterior abdominal vein, instead of being firmly attached to 

 the ventral parietes, is borne at the angle of a membrane which is 

 V-shaped in transverse section. This membrane, however, in the 

 hinder part of the body-cavity at any rate, seems to be merely the 

 slightly displaced peritoneum, which in that region of the body is 

 not closely adherent to the muscular parietes. On pulling the 

 vein the whole of the peritoneum lining the body-cavity posteriorly 

 readily came away. Anteriorly the state of affairs seems to be a 

 little different. The abdominal vein is still supported by a V-shaped 

 membrane, but the two folds of membrane are firmly attached to 

 the parietes. So far my description applies to the female example 

 of the frog dissected by me. In the male the abdominal vein 

 appeared posteriorly to stand out freely from the body-wall. I 



1 " Beitrage zu einer anatomische Monographie der Sana pipa," Verh. k. Leop.- 

 Oar. Akad. 1825, p. 527. 



2 Breyer, ' Observationes Anatomicffi circa fabricam EancB pipes' (Berl., 1811). 

 ^ " Zur Anatomie der Pipa americana" Zool. Jahrb. Abth. f. Anat. 1894. 



* There ia a small separate tliird lobe. See Zool. Jahrb. loc. cit, pi. 39. fig. 7. 



