ORDER OPHIDIA. 347 



has provided the above-mentioned swellings or enlargements 

 of that part where they may be respited during the efforts 

 made use of by the animal for that purpose, till collecting 

 its force, it gives them, as it were, another and another lift, 

 and at length ejects them ; and if what is confidently affirm- 

 ed be true, that, on occasion of danger, they receive their 

 young into their mouths, there are fit places for receiving them. 



" The heart was placed near the bottom or base of the 

 trachea, on the right side of it ; its length was an inch and 

 a half, and its figure rather flat than round, encompassed 

 by pericardium ; the vesicle being larger than the heart 

 itself. It had only one ventricle, the valves being small and 

 fleshy, and the inside of the ventricle distinguished by four 

 or five cross furrows." 



*' A little below the heart lay the liver, which was about 

 an inch wide in the largest place, and seemed divided on one 

 side by the vena cava into two lobes of an equal length ; that 

 on the left side being about ten inches, and that on the right 

 a foot long. Its colour was a brown red, and its use, no 

 doubt, the secreting of the gall, which was contained in a 

 bladder, seated at some distance below it. 



" The fat in this animal was very plentiful, and the mem- 

 brane to which it adhered seemed to be the omentum, which 

 encompassed all the parts contained in the lower belly, and 

 was joined to both sides of the ribs, running from thence to 

 the rectum, and forming a bag which enveloped the parts 

 there, but was free, and not conjoined towards the belly. 

 There was no diaphragm, or separation between the heart and 

 lungs, and the abdominal viscera. 



" The kidneys, which lay towards the back, on each side 

 of the spine, were not very firmly conjoined, and were about 

 seven inches in length, that on the right side somewhat ex- 

 ceeding that of the left : each was about an inch in diameter, 

 and though forming one continued body, yet plainly distin- 



