244 RODENTIA. 



its way to the right side : when it has passed the vessels of the liver it 

 becomes loose, forming the jejunum, which has a pretty long mesentery, 

 and passes low down on the right side, jnst where the colon ascends in 

 man ; then passes npwards and behind the mesentery to the left, and is 

 there without any mesentery; being connected to the root of the 

 mesentery pretty closely. In an English squirrel this part was connected 

 to the vertebras of the loins or the large vessels and psoas mnscle by a 

 very thin membrane, which membrane attached itself to the mesocolon 

 or mesorectum ; the same in another fox-squirrel : it then becomes 

 loose intestine as usual, and upon the right it passes into the csecum. 

 The csecum is pretty long and very large ; but becomes smaller at the 

 insertion of the ileum. The colon passes up the right side, attached to 

 the right edge of the mesentery by a thin mesocolon, and also to the 

 mesoduodenum : where the colon is going to the left or upper part of 

 the right side, it makes a pretty long fold upon itself for about 5 inches ; 

 when it has just crossed the mesentery, to which it is closely connected, 

 it makes another fold of the above length : these two folds are similar 

 to those in the porcupine ; from thence it passes down to the pelvis, 

 having a pretty long mesocolon. 



The length of the small guts are seven times the length of the body 

 of the animal : the caecum is 5 inches, or half the length of the body. 

 The colon is about twice the length of the animal 1 . 



The epiploon is attached to the great curve of the stomach, to the 

 spleen, and to the large pancreas : it was pretty broad, but not fat. 

 The small epiploon is, as it were, perforated by the lobulus Spigelii ; 

 but the edge of this perforation is attached to it all round : besides this 

 attachment of the stomach to the liver by the little epiploon, there is 

 another passing from the liver to the stomach across the little epiploon 

 in a contrary direction, upon the right of the lobulus Spigelii, but it is 

 very narrow. 



The liver is pretty large, is divided into four lobes besides the lobulus 

 Spigelii, but these divisions are not like those of a dog ; for in a dog 

 they are cut directly through in the direction of the body, but here they 

 are slanting, from the left to the right downwards ; the two right lobes 

 are very small, and the left is the largest and covers almost the whole 

 of the other, for there is only a little bit of its right edge seen, before 

 the left is turned down. The lobulus Spigelii is half behind the meso- 

 gaster, and half before it, so that the mesogaster is fixed to its middle. 

 There is a gall-bladder which lies deep in a sulcus of the lobe next to 

 the left, and the cystic duct passes along and joins the hepatics, which 



1 [Home, Comp. Anal-., pp. 451, 452.] 



