402 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



scattered connective tissue corpuscles. It never separates with the 

 gland from the mucosa. 



The relation of the capillaries to the various portions of the fish's 

 stomach has been pretty accurately described by Melnikow for Lota 

 vulgaris. These vessels in Amiurus present no difference from the 

 <nven description, except in their connection with the glands. The 

 following description must, therefore, follow Melnikow's 1 to a great 

 extent. 



The arteries of the mesenteric coat become divided into two or 

 more branches, which pass between the longitudinal muscle bundles, 

 the proper vessels of which are accompanied by venous capillaries. 

 The o-reater branches run into the circular layer between * whose 

 bundles they pass to the submucosa. The outline of the vessels 

 formed around these bundles is generally quadrate. In the sub- 

 mucosa the arterial branches take an upward and a backward course 

 toward the muscularis mucosae. Those distributed to the base of a 

 crypt or sulcus immediately pierce the muscularis, within which they 

 run parallel to the surface and then in between the base of the 

 glands. Arteries of large diameter in the submucosa run parallel to 

 the surfaces of the folds, and give off branches which ascend into the 

 extreme summit, each of which again in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of the mucularis muscosae divides into two or three smaller 

 branches. These latter pierce the muscularis mucosae and then 

 break up into a number of very fine twigs, which ascend between 

 the glands and parallel to them. Each of these give off to the 

 others near it a transverse twig, and in this manner arise a polygonal 

 often an hexagonal field when the glands are viewed in transverse 

 section. As many as ten or twelve transverse bands may surround 

 a gland. When they reach the base of the epithelial layer and the 

 base of the crypts they run very close to these and pass over into 

 venous capillaries which collect gradually into ones of still greater 

 size till they reach the submucosa. 



MIDGUT. 



The folds of the mucous membrane are highest in the neighbour- 

 hood of the pyloric valve and appear most distinctly in villi-like 

 prominences. Such a view is not always obtainable, only so in the 



i Ueber die Verbreitungweise der Gefasse in den Hauten des Darmkanals der Lota, vulgaris. 

 Arehiv fur Anat. und Physiol. 1866. 



