1906.] 



VASCULAR SYSTEM OF THE CEOCODILIA. 



621 



abdominal vein not very far from the edge of the liver. In the 

 smaller example of Osteolcenius tetraspis which I have dissected I 

 could detect no such coianection at all ; the two veins were quite 

 independent throughout their course. In a larger specimen of 

 this species, a vein ran from the left anterior abdominal and was 

 observed to pass obliquely forwards ; I lost it in the neighbourhood 

 of the gall-bladder, and so am inclined to suspect that it did not 

 join the right anterior abdominal but entered the liver separately. 

 Its point of origin, moreover, was fui^ther forward than the 

 connection in Crocodihos cataj^hr actus. 



Text-fia-. 105. 



Portal veins of liver in Osteolesmus tetraspis (left-hand figure) and 

 Crocodilus cataphractus (right-hand figure). 



A. Aorta; As. Azygos of left side; L. Liver; B. Entrance into liver of veins 

 connected with azygos. 



Though I am uncertain as to the destination of the branch of 

 the left anterior abdominal vein in Osieolcemus, I have noted and 

 been able to follow the course of an apparently identical vein in 

 Caiman scleroi^s. The left vein in this Crocodilian is smaller than 

 the right, and a little way behind the liver it divides into two 

 branches, of which the right is rather the thicker. The latter 

 enters the liver in the furrow between the two lobes and receives 

 a branch from the stomach before so entering. The left branch 

 enters the portal system of the left lobe. The division of the left 



