480 MR. G. w. BUTLER ON THE [June 14, 



sacs in the region of the liver. These authors are chiefly concerned 

 with details as to the most posterior of the spaces described in this 

 paper, especially as to its tapering forward and backward extensions. 

 Some of their statements were in 1880 questioned by S. Jourdain ' ; 

 and in 1882 Blanchard, in the light of new material, published a 

 second paper (4) in which he modifies the account given in the 

 former (3) ^. 



These authors refer us to Cuvier (1835), Dumeril and Bibron 

 (1844), Siebold and Stannius (1848), and Milne-Edwards. I have 

 of course carefully consulted these and also Owen, Hunter (' Essays 

 and Observations,' edited by Owen), and various modern text- 

 books ; but I have not found anything on this subject to which it is 

 worth while to refer the reader. Anatomists have as a rule kept clear 

 of it ; and one feels that it would be often mere impertinence to 

 criticise in detail the little that has been said. So far as my search 

 has gone, while here and there we find details of truth often mixed 

 with more or less error, it may be said, speaking generally, that 

 those authors who are not betrayed into including Snakes under 

 their description of other reptiles, keep safe, by confining themselves 

 to the most meagre details or to the most vague and general 

 statements. For instance, Cuvier (Lecons d'Anat. Comp. 2nd ed. 

 1835, torn. iv. 2^ part. pp. 670, 671) describes the relations of 

 the pleuro-peritoneum in the Slowworm {Anguis fragilis), where we 

 have the typical Lacertilian condition, and adds that in the true 

 Snakes things are similar, hut more comjjlicated. In the paper 

 above referred to (3) Lataste and Blanchard do an injustice to 

 Cuvier by quoting this passage without the last " saving clause." 



List of Titles. 

 [Snakes.] 



(1) Retzius. — "Anatomisk untersockning ofver nagra delar af 



Python bivittatus.'' Kon. Vet.-Akad. Handl. Stockholm, 

 1830, pp. 81-116. 



(2) Retzius. — [German version of the above]. " Isis," Leipzig, 



1832, pp. 511-531. 



(3) F. Lataste et R. Blanchard. — " Le Peritoine du Python 



de Seba." Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1879, pp. 95-112. 



(4) R. Blanchard. — " Nouvelles recherches sur le Peritoine du 



Python de Seba." Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1882. 



^ Revue Intei-Qationale cles Sciences, 1880, p. 267. 



^ What chiefly interests these writers is a macroscopic connection which they 

 find between the hinder division of the peritoneal cavity and the connective 

 tissue in that region, and so possibly with the " cisterna magna" (grande 

 cisterne retro-peritonale), and they add suggestive remarks as to the relations 

 of coelom, lymph-spaces, and connective tissue in general, and the inter- 

 changeability of the two latter. There is, as they say, nothing essentially new 

 involved, but it would be interesting, if their account be correct (but this is 

 disputed), to see with the naked eye what is in other animals only to be seen 

 with the microscope. 



