CROTALUS DURISSUS. 57 



half an inch, and then formed a large intestine, the weaved ridges 

 of its external coat presenting a curious and pleasing spectacle. 

 The intestine, after some small windings, terminated in the rectum, 

 which was of much smaller diameter. In the promiscuous food 

 which serpents take in, which they always swallow whole, and in 

 which there are always some parts unfit for digestion, and which 

 must therefore be returned, the oesophagus here being very long, 

 nature has provided the above-mentioned swellings or enlargements 

 of that part where they may be respited during the efforts made 

 use of by the animal for that purpose, till collecting its force, it 

 gives them as it were another and another lift, and at length ejects 

 them ; and if what is confidently affirmed be true, that, on occa- 

 sion of danger, they receive their young into their mouths, there 

 are fit places for receiving them. 



" The heart was placed near the bottom or base of the trachea, 

 on the right side of it ; its length was an inch and a half, and its 

 figure rather flat than round, encompassed by the pericardium. 

 It had only one ventricle, the valves being small and fleshy, and 

 the inside of the ventricle distinguished by four or five cross 

 furrows. 



" A little below the heart lay the liver, which was about an inch 

 wide in the largest part, and seemed divided on one side by the 

 vena cava into two lobes of an equal length ; that on the left side 

 being about ten inches, -and that on the right a foot long. Its 

 colour was a brown red, and its use, no doubt, the secreting of the 

 gall, which was contained in a bladder, seated at some distance 

 below it. 



" The fat in this animal was very plentiful, and the membrane 

 to which it adhered seemed to be the omentum, which encompassed 

 all the parts contained in the lower belly, and was joined to both 

 sides of the ribs, running from thence to the rectum, and forming 

 a bag which enveloped the parts there, but was free, and not con- 

 joined towards the belly. There was no diaphragm, or separation 

 between the heart and lungs, and the abdominal viscera. 



" The kidneys, which lay towards the back on each side of the 

 spine, were not very firmly conjoined, and were about seven inches 

 in length, that on the right side somewhat exceeding that on the 



G 



