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I have dissected different portions of it with some care, and 

 shall lay before the Academy, at the present Meeting, a sec- 

 tion of the recent skull, also the brain, and a minute dissec- 

 tion of the nerves of the proboscis on one side. As my time 

 has been limited, and much engaged with other matters, I 

 shall not enter into a minute examination of these parts, but 

 merely exhibit such striking characters and peculiarities as 

 are likely to engage the attention of those who are not fully 

 acquainted with the subject. I may observe that, in the 

 course of my dissections, I have ascertained some points which 

 I do not find noticed by preceding writers, and others which 

 have been stated differently from what I have found. Thus, 

 among the ocular appendages, the membrana nictitans,or third 

 eye-lid, presents some interesting relations ; in the orbit 1 do 

 not find any retrahens oculi muscle, as is to be inferred from the 

 descriptions in books ; I also observe a second external rectus 

 muscle. In the ear also I find a peculiar arrangement of the 

 muscles of the ossicula auditus ; and I see no evidence of the 

 muscular structure of the membrana tympani, so accurately 

 described by Sir E. Home in the Philosophical Transactions, 

 and mentioned by subsequent writers, who seem to have 

 adopted his opinions, rather than to have examined the organ 

 for themselves. In the thorax I have remarked the absence 

 of the pleural or serous membranes ; and I find the lungs are 

 connected to the parietes by a great quantity of filamentous 

 and yellow tissue, yielding and elastic. I have also discovered 

 a remarkable muscle extending from the back part of the 

 trachea to the oesophagus, near its passage through the dia- 

 phragm, of which I can find no previous notice. The rudi- 

 mentary condition of the gall bladder in the abdomen, as well 

 as the mucous membrane of the small intestines, and the re- 

 productive male organs, present certain peculiarities, which do 

 not appear to me to have received sufficient attention. I shall 

 not allude further to any of these points at present, but as time 

 permits me to complete their examination, and to prepare 

 suitable illustrations, I hope to place some additional remarks 



