VASCULAR SYSTEM. 



651 



glands, whose secretion has a characteristic and strong 

 odour. 



The liver is attached to the diaphragm by a fold of peri- 

 toneum — the glistening membrane which lines the abdominal 

 cavity. In the liver there are five lobes. From these lobes 

 the bile is collected by hepatic ducts into a common bile duct, 

 which is also connected to the gall-bladder by the cystic duct. 



The very diffuse pancreas lies in the mesentery of the 

 duodenal loop. Its secretion 

 is gathered by several tubes 

 into the pancreatic duct which 

 opens into the duodenum. 



The mesentery, which sup- 

 ports the alimentary canal, is a 

 double layer of peritoneum re- 

 flected from the dorsal abdo- 

 minal wall. 



The dark red spleen (of im- 

 portance in connection with 

 the blood) lies behind the 

 stomach. In the mesentery, 

 not far from the top of trie 

 right kidney, lie a pair of cceliac 

 ganglia, which receive nerves 

 from the thoracic sympathetic 

 system, and give off branches „. 

 to the gut. ' ; 



Vascular system. — The four- 

 chambered heart lies in the 

 thoracic cavity between the 

 lungs. It is surrounded by a 

 thin pericardium, and immediately in front of it there lies 

 the soft thymus, which is larger in the young than in the 

 adult animal. 



By two superior vena; cavae, and by the inferior vena 

 cava, the venous blood collected from the body enters the 

 right auricle. Thence the blood passes into the right ven- 

 tricle through a crescentic opening, bordered by a threefold 

 (tricuspid) membranous valve (worked by chorda? tendineee 

 attached to papillary muscles projecting from the wall of the 

 ventricle). 



-Duodenum of rabbit. 

 -From Krause, in part after 

 Claude Bernard. * 



P., Pyloric end of stomach ; g.b., gall- 

 bladder with bile duct and hepatic 

 ducts; p.d., pancreatic duct. 



