2 ME. JAMES JOHKSTONE ON THE 



resembling that found in both Pliascolomys and tbe Beaver. 

 Later references to the gastric gland of the Marsupials in the 

 literature are those of Huxley, 1871 (6), Plower, 1872 (2), Forbes, 

 1881 (1), rieischman, 1891 (3), and Oppel, 1896 (8). Forbes 

 had the opportunity of examining the fresh stomach of a newly- 

 dead Koala, and described the gastric gland as red and vascular, 

 while the surrounding mucous membrane was pale ; he suggested 

 a histological comparison of the glands of PTiascolarctus and 

 FTiascolomys, with a view to finding whether the resemblance was 

 more than an external one. 



Oppel, in his important work on the comparative microscopic 

 anatomy of the stomach, gives a very short description of the 

 stomach of the Eoala (8. pp. 291-2) and a figure of the gastric 

 gland in section. The glands of the greater curvature and 

 of the gastric gland itself he describes as " Fundusdriisen." 

 There is no exact account of the limits of the gland regions, 

 but a reference is given to a paper by Edelmann in which the 

 absence of the peculiar " Cardiadriisenregion " in the Koala is 

 described, Oppel's work (8. p. 298) contains no account of the 

 histology of the gastric gland in Phascolomys. 



Fleischman has a criticism of Toepfer's work (11) on the 

 comparative anatomy of the stomach in the Eodentia, aud the 

 author makes some interesting remarks on the parallelism in 

 structure of the stomach in the Eodents and in the Diprotodont 

 Marsupials, which lead him to a belief in a close genetic 

 relationship of these two groups. ^ 



" Gastric glands " in the Mammalia outside Marsupials occur 



only in Manis among the Edentates, and in Castor among the 



!Rodents. The glandular appendages on the stomach of Manatus 



evidently belong to a distinct category. The structure in the 



stomach of the Beaver (fig.l, I., p. 4), which seems to have been 



first mentioned by Schmidt (10) in 1805, was figured and described, 



so far as external characters are concerned, by Home (4), and its 



minute anatomy was more exactly described by Toepfer (11) in 



1891. The stomach of Castor is a simple one, lined throughout 



by a glandular epithelium. The cuticular lining of the oesophagus 



ceases at the opening of tliat organ, and the gastric gland is 



situated to the pyloric side of it on the surface of the lesser 



curvature. Home gives a figure of a hand-section through one of 



the openings of the gland, which shows a number of short tubules 



opening into a short terminal duct, and forming a structure 



