1890.] HELODERMA SUSPECTUM. 197 



While in New Mexico, several years ago, I collected a large series 

 of Phrynosoma dou^lassii, and I have an alcoholic specimen of one 

 of these before me at the present time. Upon opening it I find 

 that the greater part of its peritoneum, posteriorly, is deeply pig- 

 mented (almost or quite black), while it lacks the horizontal 

 membrane dividing the coelom, and so agrees with the Iguana- 

 Lucerta group as pointed out by Beddard\ 



The liver of this Phrynosoma is very thin and broad, spreading 

 out nearly across the abdominal cavity. Its left lobe is considerably 

 the larger and the thinner ; it extends well behind and laterally 

 covering, for the most part, the neighbouring viscera. I find its 

 gall-bladder suhspherical in form, with very thin coats, while in the 

 arrangement of its duct (for there is but one of them) and the 

 hepatic duct it agrees with what T. J. Parker found in Lacerta 

 viridis — that is, a "common bile-duct, running parallel to the portal 

 vein and opening posteriorly into the duodenum : at its anterior end 

 it is formed by the uniou of the cystic duct and the hepatic duct 

 from the liver itself " ^. 



Judging, then, from Professor W. N. Parker's figure of the Frog, 

 we may have (1) several ducts leading from the lobes of the liver, 

 and combining in a single duct that goes to the gall-bladder ; (2) a 

 duct from the gall-bladder to the pancreas; (3) a duct from the 

 liver to the pancreas ; (4) the proper hepatic ducts combining to 

 form one that enters the pancreas and in it join a duct traversing that 

 gland ; (5) a common biliary-pancreatic duct passing from the end 

 of the pancreas to the duodenum. 



Judging from Beddard's description of Varanus salvntor, we may 

 have in that lizard :— (1) at least tbree ducts leading from the liver 

 to the gall-bladder ; (2) at least two proper hepatic ducts that unite 

 before joining the common duct ; (3) a cysto-hepatic duct that joins 

 the cystic duct — a final union, posteriorly, with a single cystic duct 

 and an hepatic duct to form the common duct; (4) an interlacement 

 of cystic ducts upon the surface of the gall-bladder. The relations 

 with the pancreas are not given by the writer quoted. 



Judging from T. J. Parker's description of Lacerta viridis, we 

 may have simply the cystic duct uniting with the hepatic duct 

 to form the ductus communis choledochus which opens into the 

 duodenum. 



Judging from what we find in Heloderma, we may have : — (1) a cys- 

 tic duct uniting with an hepatic duct to form a single duct that opens 

 into the duodenum ; (2) proper hepatic ducts that pass to the pan- 

 creas, usually two that unite in a single one before coming to that 

 gland; (3) a common duct from the pancreas to the duodenum: 



^ Proc. Zool. Soc. 18S8, p. 100. I am inclined to tMnk that this character 

 is going to prove to be of no little value in the study of the structure of Lizards 

 in future researches. 



- Parker, T. J., ' A Course of Instruction in Zootomy (Vertebrates),' 1884, 

 p. 165. According to Owen, " In the Iguana there is a distinct hepatic duct 

 which enters the duodenum about an inch from the pylorus, a cyst-hepatic duct 

 ■which enters the side of the gall-bladder, and cystic ducts which leave the 

 globose bladder abruptly " (loc. cit. p. 451). 



