408 pisces. 



of the abdomen, a little above the anus : and therefore is most pro- 

 bably viviparous and gives suck 1 . What part of the world this fish 

 came from I do not know 2 . 



[Order Ganoidei.] 

 The Sturgeon [Acipenser Sturio, Linn. 3 ]. 



The anus is near the tail, viz. the lower part of the abdomen. The 

 oesophagus 4 passes down below the pericardium, and before the sound 

 [air-bladder], adhering to it : the stomach is continued some way in 

 the abdomen, appearing like an oesophagus, then makes a short turn to 

 the left, and passes up nearly as high as before : it then makes a turn 

 down and to the right ; this last lies in the concave hollow of the liver, 

 and where it is going to pass down, it terminates in the pylorus. The 

 duodenum passes down 8 or 10 inches, and makes a short bend up upon 

 itself as high as the pylorus ; then makes a short bend again down, and 

 terminates in a valvular apparatus like a pylorus, into the colon which 

 runs straight to the anus. The whole length of the intestine from the 

 pylorus to the anus is honeycombed, and the rectum has a spiral ridge 

 running through its whole length 3 , something like that in the shark, 

 dog-fish, skate, or thornback. Below the second turn of the stomach 

 is the pancreas 8 . These parts are more spread from one another than 

 natural (in the sketch), for they rather lie before one another. The 

 dotted line above is where the liver 7 is situated, the left lobe of which 

 passes down as low as the first turn, lying, as it were, between the two 

 behind, as the pancreas lies before 8 . The spleen lies all along the upper 

 surface of the duodenum, or that surface next to the back, passing a 

 little lower, and at the upper end it divides into two, as it were, en- 

 closing the first turn of the stomach. The pancreas opens by large 

 orifices into the duodenum, close to the pylorus, and is no more than a 



1 [The Ccdhrhynchiis, like the Chim<era, is oviparous : the nidamental glands of 

 the oviducts are shown in the preparation No. 2676. The singular eggs of which 

 they secrete the albuminous shell are shown in Nos. 3235 A & b. Hunter's prelimi- 

 nary and characteristic remarks, introductory to this dissection, are invalidated by 

 his odd mistake of the parts he describes as ' nipples.'] 



2 [" Mr. Hunter got it in 1792, and Mr. St. Aubin made a drawing of it. — W. C.' 1 

 The last-named gentleman was one of the numerous French emigrants in London at 

 that date. Mr. Hunter received him into his house, and some drawings of Natural 

 History objects were made by him. The Callorhynchus inhabits the Australian and 

 Antarctic Seas.] 



3 [The jaws and parts of the dermal skeleton of the sturgeon are preserved, Nos. 

 376 — 379, in the Hunterian Osteological Series.] 



4 [Hunt. Prep. Phys. Series, No. 463.] 5 [lb. Nos. 636—644.] 

 6 [lb. No. 504.] i [lb. Nos. 793, 794.] 

 8 [The rough 'sketch' referred to is omitted. 1 



