DR, GUNTHER ON THE ANATOMY OE HATTERIA. 
621 
Organs of Digestion. 
The teeth have been described in connexion with the bones of the jaws. 
The tongue (fig. 16) is fleshy, elongate-triangular, posteriorly with the base entirely 
grown to the bottom of the mouth, and angularly incised to receive the glottis*. Its 
surface is densely covered with soft pointed papillae, without any tubercles or scales, and 
divided into two lateral halves by a shallow median furrow. 
The salivary organs are but little developed ; the mucous membrane on the outer side 
of the middle of the mandible has a spongy appearance, the surface being irregularly 
reticulated. Along the side of the base of the tongue there are simple solitary glands 
in small number, nowhere aggregated into a larger mass. Their openings are minute, 
and most distinct on the side of the root of the tongue. 
The hyoid does not show any peculiarity, except as regards its attachment to the skull. 
The body is arrow-shaped, but little ossified, tapering into a long point in front, and 
split into a pair of accessory horns behind. The anterior horn consists of two pieces, 
nearly entirely cartilaginous, the inner much longer than the outer, which is attached by. 
a ligament to the terminal cartilage of the stapes (see p. 26). The posterior horn 
consists of a long, arched, entirely osseous piece, to which a short terminal cartilage is 
joined. No part of the horns is dilated. 
The oesophagus is wide, and passes, without distinct separation, into the elongate, 
spindle-shaped stomach ; the muscular layer of the latter is nowhere conspicuously 
thickened, and its mucous membrane is raised into only a few longitudinal folds. No 
curvatura major can be distinguished. The pylorus is indicated by the cessation of the 
longitudinal folds ; the duodenum is 9 millims. long, and separated from the small intes- 
tine by a circular valve only about T5 millim. deep, and consequently not entirely 
shutting the duodenum f. No part of the small intestine is provided with valvulse conni- 
ventes, all the folds running in a longitudinal direction ; they are numerous and very low 
and narrow in the upper fourth, broad and less numerous in the middle, and disappear 
entirely towards the rectum. There are no patches of accumulated glands anywhere. 
The passage into the very wide rectum is narrowed by an incomplete valve. The cloaca 
is separated from the rectum on the dorsal side only by a fold of the mucosa. 
The walls of the intestines are throughout very thin ; the small intestine makes two 
complete circumvolutions, and is 180 millims. long, the rectum with the cloaca 100 
millims. 
The liver is conspicuously divided into two lateral portions, each of wdiich is subdivided 
in a curious and apparently irregular manner. The bridge between the two portions 
crosses the lower surface of the posterior part of the stomach. The left portion lies in 
the lower part of the abdominal cavity, is thin, twice as long as broad, and fixed by an 
exceedingly strong and long filament to the pubic bone. This portion is at some places 
* This posterior incision is still deeper in Grammatopliora, in which, moreover, each posterior angle of the 
tongue is produced into a short, scaly, pointed lobe. 
f Cf. a similar arrangement in JRegenia and Monitor, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1861, pp. 60, 110. 
4 P 2 
