484 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE [ Nov. 28, 
Between the liver and the stomach runs a forward extension of 
the portal vein, which dies away anteriorly but nearly reaches the 
forward extremity of the liver. At first the dorsal parieto- 
hepatic vessels, where the right lobe of the liver is prolonged 
beyond the gall-bladder, open directly into the intra-hepatic 
venous system. But further forward, where the two lobes of the 
liver come into continuity and the two dorsal hepatic ligaments 
fuse, the parieto-hepatic portal veins open into (or at least very 
close to) the forward extension of the portal vein already referred 
to. Itis only in this region that gastro-hepatic vessels occur. 
The left gastro-hepatic ligament carries no gastro-hepatic vessels, 
that I could see, in that part where it is free from the right 
ligament. The vessels, in fact, are first visible about 40 min. from 
the anterior end of the liver. They open into the longitudinal 
portal vessel like the dorsal parieto-hepatic veins. 
It is important to notice the likeness which the arrangement 
of these veins in Amphisbena bears to the similar arrangement 
of the same veins in Snakes on the one hand and in Hatteria on 
the other. In Lacertilia, as a rule, the gastro-hepatic veins 
bringing blood from the stomach and cesophagus to the liver enter 
the latter organ separately, or at most one or two blend together 
before opening into the blood-sinuses of the liver. In Hatteria, 
as I have already pointed out *, there is a collecting-vein, which 
is a prolongation forward of the portal vein, that is the conjomed 
portal and anterior abdominal, which runs in the gastro-hepatic 
ligament on the left side of the body and receives on the one hand 
veins from the stomach, while on the other side it gives off veins 
to the liver. There is, however, in Hatéeria, no further resem- 
blance to the conditions which obtain in Amphisbena. In Snakes 
there is the further likeness in that, while there is the same 
forward prolongation of the portal vein forwards between the 
liver and the stomach, this vein not only receives branches from 
the stomach which it transmits to the liver from the opposite 
side, but it is also in connection with the venous system of the 
body-wall by means of the dorsal parieto-hepatic veins, which 
thus come, as in Amphisbena, into close relations with the gastro- 
hepatic veins. 
The important point of likeness between all three types is, as 
it appears to me, the extension forwards of the portal up to or 
nearly up to the anterior extremity of the liver. ‘The close 
association in Snakes and in Amphisbena of the dorsal parieto- 
hepatic vessels with branches from the stomach to the liver seems to 
me to be dependent merely upon the narrow form of the body and 
of the liver, and the consequent necessity of packing everything 
in a narrow space. As it is so markedly the rule for the portal to 
enter the liver at its hinder border in the Lacertilia, these two 
divergences from that normal condition cannot but attract atten- 
tion, especially as they show a likeness to the admittedly nearly” 
* Above, p. 464. 
