46 Proceedings of the 



morbid changes) served merely to confirm a few of the nume- 

 rous particulars which had been previously described in the 

 admirable monographs of Professor Owen.* 



After the lapse of more than a twelvemonth, we had occasion 

 to overhaul the parts laid aside for future conservation and 

 permanent display in the anatomical museum, and on care- 

 fully re-examining these, we detected at the root of the csecum, 

 and in portions of the small intestine, the peculiarities to be 

 immediately noticed. The circumstance of their having 

 hitherto escaped observation is easily accounted for, inasmuch 

 as the sacculi, in the present case, were only rendered visible 

 by repeated washings, and the removal of a thick layer of 

 tenacious mucus which completely obliterated all trace of the 

 foldings. During our temporary absence from the meeting of 

 the British Association recently held at Glasgow, the prepara- 

 tions now before the Society were exhibited by Professor Allen 

 Thomson to the Physiological Sub-section of that assembly, 

 and since then we have had an opportunity of privately calling 

 the attention of Professor Kolliker of Wurtzburg to the sub- 

 ject ; we feel confidence in stating, therefore, that the occur- 

 rence of the sacculi in question is certainly quite unusual, if 

 not altogether absent in other mammalia. 



In the first place, we observe that only a proportion of the 

 composite glands proper to the small intestine presented any 

 deviation from the ordinary type, and in consequence of our 

 having retained only a few small sections of the tube detached 

 indiscriminately from different parts of the gut, we were un- 

 able to form even an approximate notion as to the actual num- 

 ber of patches showing the following modification. Out of the 

 eight or nine glandulce examined by us, four of the masses, 

 varying severally from half an inch to three inches in length, 

 exhibited at their anterior or duodenal extremity a semilunar 

 valve-like fold of mucous membrane. Each fold forms a sort 

 of cul-de-sac, which in the two larger patches is capable of 

 admitting the tip of the little finger ; the exposed or convex 

 surface exhibits the ordinary villous texture of the intestine, 



* On the Anatomy of the Nubian Giraffe, in Zool. Soc. Trans., vol. ii. ; also a 

 second Memoir in vol. iii., for 1838-1839. 



