238 
G. L. PURSER. 
W. N. Parker, describing the adult condition in Protop- 
terus, states that the main factor of the hepatic portal is a 
large mesenteric which runs close to the intra-intestinal artery- 
in the axis of the spiral valve and comes to the surface at the 
pylorus (this is the intra-intestinal vein of Laguesse). He 
mentions a subintestinal vein, the connections of which he has 
not made out, and then says that just anterior to the pylorus 
the mesenteric can be traced into an anterior and posterior 
branch, the latter supplying the posterior lobe of the liver 
behind the gall-bladder. (This is the first branch I have 
mentioned above.) He continues: “The former receiving a 
large lieno-gastric vein (the factors of which form a dense 
meshwork in the spleen) and a pancreatic vein, and then 
dividing into branches which supply the anterior lobe of the 
liver.” According to him, therefore, there is but one 
efferent vessel, and the afferent supply is wholly arterial. 
This is in marked contrast with what obtains iu other fish. 
(a) T. J. Parker on Must el us, for instance, describes two 
large veins connnected with the spleen, an anterior and 
posterior lieno-gastric. The former runs with the lieno- 
gastric artery, and is most likely . efferent ; the latter lies 
between the pyloric division of the stomach and the right lobe 
(morphological posterior portion) of the spleen and “ receives 
feeders from both.” 
(b) Laguesse on Acanthias says the hepatic portal is 
composed of two trunks : the supra-intestinal, running the 
length of the intestine, and, after passing the liilum of 
the spleen, receives from that organ the splenic vein ; and the 
subintestinal, which receives blood from the pancreas, at the 
edge of which it receives the accessory splenic. These two 
veins correspond to the anterior and posterior lieno-gastric 
veins of T. J. Parker respectively. He states that in the 
adult they are anastomosed, and in the embryo it is on this 
loop that the spleen appears. He also states that there is a 
double anastomosing arterial supply, one directly from the 
aorta and one from the coeliac, a condition which, he says, is 
found in the Trout as well. 
