518 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE VASCULAR AND [May 1, 



which the posterior tail-like extremity of the right lobe is so 

 lengthy in proportion as it is in Corallus madagascariensis. Not 

 only is it very long, but it is also very thin, ending posteriorly in 

 the tiniest filament of liver-tissue. There is no doubt, however, 

 that the extreme end is liver-tissue, and that I have not confounded 

 with this unusual extension a portion of the vena cava, with 

 which, possibly, in a badly preserved specimen one might have 

 confounded it. The liver almost, if indeed not actually, touches 

 the spleen behind, and comes very near to the gall-bladder, which 

 organ is, as a rule, separated by a considerable space from its 

 posterior termination. The spleen is smallish and dark red in 

 colour and uneven in form, being lobulated, the lobules, however, 

 showing no tendency to become separate from each other. It 

 lies, as will be gathered, just in front of the gall-bladder. The 

 pancreas is firmly fixed at the junction of the slender pyloric 

 part of the stomach with the wider small intestine and lies on 

 both sides of the gut. The ducts arising from the gall-bladder 

 form a plexus upon it. 



Both lungs of Corcdlus are functional ; but there is the usual 

 disparity of size between them. The difi'erence of size, however, 

 is greater than in Python. Both lungs possess a headward 

 extension in the form of a shoi't pyramidal cfecum directed 

 forwards. The tissue of the larger lung is continued headwards 

 as the membranous interval between the tracheal rings dor- 

 sally. There is, however, no trace whatever of any invasion 

 of this membrane by lung-tissue. It is merely membranous. 

 The bronchus belonging to the larger lung is continued for a 

 long way down it, very much further than in any species of 

 Python which I have had the opportunity of examining. This 

 tracheal or bronchial extension reaches, in fact, some little way 

 down the liver. Its exact place of ending is rather difficult 

 to define. Towards the end it narrows rather rapidly, but 

 is thereafter continued further as a fibrous band. A similar 

 fibrous band exists in the Python, P. spilotes ; but it begins much 

 earlier in the lung. The extension of the bronchus is remi- 

 niscent of the lung of Boa diviniloqua rather than of any 

 Python with which I am acquainted. In the smaller left lung 

 the bronchus is also continued, but extends only for two or three 

 rings. The origin of the left bronchus appears as a perfora- 

 tion in the right bronchus ; it is exactly in the middle of the 

 rings of the latter, not to one side for example. It is to be noted 

 that the extension of the bronchus down the right lung differs 

 from a similar extension in Coluber and some other Snakes by 

 reason of the fact that the rings are flattened out. There is no 

 such occlusion of the rings dorsally to form a practically closed 

 tube as we meet with in the genus Coluber. The fibrous band 

 which seems to continue the bronchus down the lung is probably 

 really to be looked upon as morphologically the posterior end of 

 the cartilaginous series of bronchial semirings. The present 

 species, when compared Avith Python, offers evidence that this is 



