OF THE STURGEON. 
349 
more generally known than lie is *. This author mentions 
shortly in his description of the intestinal structure of fishes, 
parts of the alimentary canal, to which he gives the name 
of intestina cceca, or blind guts ; that is, bowels without 
vent ; and of these he delineates examples in the perch, the 
rocket, the eel-pout, the grey mullet, the red mullet, the 
gurnet, the whiting, and the asellus virescens^ — a variety, I 
believe, of the whiting. In these genera of the finny tribes, 
the cceca are numerous, varying from 6, 8, or 10, to 17, 
20, or even 100 in some instances. They are in the shape 
of long processes which hang loose from the secondary sto- 
mach, not unlike fingers ; and, when not very numerous, 
they popularly receive the name of hand or foot, as in the 
case of the burbot, the Gadus Lota of Linnaeus, the Lota 
fluviatilis of M. Cuvier and Mr Stark. This may be con- 
sidered the first form of the part of the alimentary canal at 
present under consideration. 
The same author, in a subsequent part of his work, de- 
scribes, in the same situation, under the name of Pancreas, 
an organ, sometimes triangular, sometimes like a battledore, 
but always containing glandular cavities, and secretory ducts. 
Collins, at the same time, mentions the fact as ascertained 
by the Amsterdam anatomists already referred to, that, in 
some fishes, as the cod, it is possible to enumerate 249 ap- 
pendages, terminating in 40, and occasionally in 70 trunks, 
* A Systeme of Anatomy, treating of the Body of Man, Beasts, 
Birds, Fish, Insects, and Plants, illustrated with many schemes, con- 
sisting of a variety of elegant figures, drawn from the life, and engraved 
on seventy-four folio copper-plates ; and after every part of man's body 
hath been anatomically described, its diseases, cases and cures, are con- 
cisely exhibited. By Samuel Collins, Doctor of Physic, Physician in 
ordinary to his late Majesty of blessed memory, and Fellow of the 
King's most famous College of Physicians in London, and formerly a 
Fellow of the Royal Foundation of Trinity College in the most flourish- 
ing University of Cambridge. In the Savoy, printed by Thomas New., 
combe 1685. Two vols, folio. 
