128 MR. F, E. HEDBAIID ON THE [Mar. 3, 



Mr. F. E. Beddard, M. A,., F.R.S., exliibited the colon and rectum 

 of a. Badger (Males meles), and made the following remai-ks : — 



The specimen of this Carnivore exhibited to-night shows a 

 remarkably large Peyer's patch in the colon which extends 

 through the greater part of that section of the gut and actually 

 measures eleven inches in length. The accompanying drawing 

 (text-fig. 17) shows tlie general aspect of this large agminated 

 gland and its proportions, as compared with the gut wherein it 

 lies. At the anterior end of the colon it is of somewhat less 

 diameter than that which it attains later and i-etains until its 

 disappeai'ance about six inches in fi'ont of the anus. It ends here 

 abruptly by a sti-aight margin. Its diameter is .about one third 

 of that of the gut, and is fairly even throughout except as already 

 stated at the commencement. More accurate measurements of 

 this patch and of the gut are as follows : anteriorly the gut is 

 26 mm. in circumference and the patch is 6 mm. across ; more 

 towards the anus the gut is rather wider, measuring 30 mm., 

 and the patch has correspondingly increased in width, being here 

 of a diameter of 11 mm. 



A close examination of the walls of the gut shows that there 

 is no differentiation of the lining membrane, and therefore the 

 whole piece cut out of the body and displayed in the drawing 

 (text-fig. 17) is referable to the large intestine. These " Glandulfe 

 agminatse " are by no means recoi'ded here for the first time as 

 occurring beyond the small intestine in a mammal. It would 

 appear that the first description of these structures as occurring in 

 the colon is due to Owen *, who found them in the genus 3Iacropus. 

 Subsequently the late Dr. Dobson t found such Peyer's patches 

 in a variety of Rodentia and Insectivora and even in the Edentate 

 Manis. This author quoted my own discovery of the same patches 

 in the Lemur, Ilajxilemur gi'iseus, which I subsequently figured +. 

 Miall and Greenwood record the same glands in their treatise upon 

 the Elephant ; and all of these sources of information, with the 

 exception of my own observations upon Hcq^alemur, are to be 

 found referred to in the monumental work of Oppel §. 



It is, however, not only the situation of this Peyer's patch in 

 the large intestine that is of interest. Its size also is remarkable ; 

 but it is by no means imique in this particular. For Oppel 

 observes that " Beim Rind findet man am Ende des Ileums eine 

 2-3 M. lange Platte die noch in das Caecum hineinreicht." There 

 is also a large Peyer's patch in the sheep and the pig and in one 

 or two other animals belonging to the same order as Meles, viz., 

 in the cat and the dog. This lai'ge patch in the Badger would 

 seem to be quite as lai'ge as in the other mammals which possess 

 a similar patch. 



P.S. {added June \()th). — In a second specimen (half-grown), 



* Article "Marsupials" in Todd's Cj'clopajdia, and iu his treatise on Conijiarative 

 Anatomy. 1868. 



t .TonVn. Anat. Plivs. xviii. 1881, p. 388. 



+ 1'. Z. S. 1891, V- '1*5, fin\ 2. 



§ Lehvlnicli dor Vergleichenden Mikroscopische Anatoniii;, Toil ii., .Jena 1897. 



