OF THE STURGEON, 
347 
or rather greenish-black, with pansy-purple, interspersed 
with whitish or white-grey spots. Its consistence is firm 
and solid, a circumstance to be ascribed to the thickness 
of its parietes, which are at least half an inch, often more 
than a whole one. Its outer free surface is covered, as the 
other abdominal organs, with peritoneum. The internal, 
I have already said, is a membrane of the same physical 
and anatomical characters as that of the duodenum. Be- 
tween the two is interposed a mass of firm fleshy sub- 
stance, of a greyish-white colour, and which resembles a 
good deal the substance of the uterus of mammiferous ani- 
mals. (Fig. 2. P). 
The internal arrangement of this body is very singular. 
The orifice which leads to it from the duodenum very soon 
diverges into several similar orifices ; and, when these are 
exposed by suitable sections^ they are found to terminate in 
spherical and spheroidal cavities, in which are found simi- 
lar orifices leading to similar cavities. Though I call 
these cavities spherical or spheroidal, I mean not to say 
that their shape is strictly so ; and indeed it is difficult ac- 
curately to determine the form of these cavities, which vary 
in this respect according as one communicates with few or 
more of them. Thus, after laying open the organ by a sec- 
lion directed laterally outward, a pretty large space, of an 
irregular figure, but containing four or five orifices, is ex- 
posed. When the section is prolonged into one or more of 
these openings, their shape is found still to vary according 
as they present other openings in smaller or greater num- 
ber. While this organ, in short, possesses no general ca- 
vity, its interior is moulded into a series of communicating 
cells, separated by partitions of the substance proper to the 
organ, and each of which, to the remotest recess, is lined by 
the honeycomb or reticular membrane, which is continued 
from the duodenum. 
