protruded from the mouth if the Dromedary. 141 
pale, wrinkled and pendulous. When reduced to this state the 
animal retracts it within the mouth; and, to facilitate this opera- 
tion, inclines the head back towards the trunk, at the same time 
bringing down the muzzle towards the neck. 
The first time that I saw this singular body, it excited much 
astonishment ; for I could not imagine whence it proceeded ; 
and, as much as I tortured my imagination, I was unable to form 
a reasonable conjecture, I was therefore compelled, in order to 
satisfy my curiosity, to wait for an opportunity of dissecting a 
dromedary ; and this happening at no great interval of time, 
what was my surprise to discover that this guttural bladder was 
nothing else but an extraordinary development of the uvula ; 
an organ in the other mammalia of extremely small size, and 
scarcely touching the upper surface of the tongue. On examin- 
ing the uvula and other parts of the mouth of the dromedary, I 
detected, with great ease, the mechanism by which this organ is 
projected from the mouth in the form of a bladder ; and though 
such a mechanism be very complicated, those who have an op- 
portunity of examining the head of an adult dromedary, will 
readily comprehend it, without having read this memoir. But to 
make it understood by words alone, through the medium of a 
simple description, without having the subject before the eyes, 
or without many designs, is not a thing easily to be done, at 
least by me ; so complicated are the parts of the fauces of the 
dromedary, and so numerous are the circumstances which con- 
cur in forming the so-called bladder. 
Therefore, through the medium of detailed descriptions, and 
by the assistance of a plate in which I have endeavoured to re- 
present, in the most favourable point of view, the parts of which 
I speak, I shall endeavour to render the origin of the very 
curious guttural sac of the dromedary easily comprehended -f*. 
( To be concluded in next Number,) 
* See Plate IX. of following Number. 
I The Italian anatomists subdivide what is by the British denominated the 
arch of the palate into two parts, pilastri or crura of the arches, and areata o# 
crown of the arches. 
