Material for the Study of Ruminants. 



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The most conspicuous feature in the general arrangement of the 

 intestine of this animal when compared with the same of the domestic 

 animals, sheep and ox, is the narrowness of the mesentery, so that 

 the peripheric coil of the colon lies rather close as well to the central 

 coils as to the jejunum. The entire length of the intestine of this 

 young Black-buck is not more than about 12 times that of head and 

 body. Previous authors (Cuvier) have found the same relation to be 

 about 15. Even if this latter figure should be correct in some instan- 

 ces the intestine of this animal is much shorter when compared to 

 the length of the animal itself than, for instance, in the domesticated 

 ruminants in which according to Ellenberger v ) the entire length of 

 the intestine »beträgt das 24 — 33 fache der Rumpf länge». Both small 

 and large intestine of the the Black-buck are thus comparatively shor- 

 ter than in the sheep as can be concluded from this statement com- 

 pared with the above stated relation between the intestinal tracts of 

 both animals. The shortness of the intestine and the few colic coils 

 in the Black-buck point to the same as the above stated reduction of 

 certain gastric divisions namely that this animal must feed on more 

 easily digested food than, for instance, the sheep. 



The liver of this young Black-buck is rather deeply cleft in a 

 left and a right lobe. The dimensions of the former is 11,5 by 6 cm., 

 and of the latter 8 by 10 cm. The greatest thickness is about 2V i 2 

 cm. On the convex anterior side the umbilical fissure extends half 

 way through the organ, but on the concave side not quite so far. 

 The gall-bladder is situated quite close to the fissure so that the well 

 developed groove or fossa vesica? felleœ which extends from the cervix 

 of the bladder to the margin of the liver, opens, so to say, in the 

 fissura umbilicalis at the blind end of the bladder. This situation seems 

 to be somewhat aberrant from the usual condition in the Cavicornia, 

 but Murie says about the Saiga that »the slight median noteh» is 

 »close to the fundus of the gall-bladder» so that in that animal the 

 situation of this organ seems to be similar although the umbilical fis- 

 sure is only little developed. In Sus the gall-bladder lies also close to 

 the umbilical fissure. The shape of the gall-bladder of the Black-buck 

 is similar to the one which 1 have figured (1. c.) from the Gnu. It 

 is not pear-shaped, but abruptly widened near the ductus choledochus 

 at the cervix and is there broader, about 23 mm. when empty and 



! ) Handb. d. vergl. Anat. d. Hausthiere. Berlin 1900 p. 452. 

 Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sc. Ups. Ser. III. Impr. 6 , 7 1903. 



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