OCR Text |
Show 1873.] OF THE SUMATRAN RHINOCEROS. 95 are largest posteriorly, reaching a diameter of \ inch ; anteriorly they get smaller, and cease by becoming more and more scattered. The rest of the tongue is covered uniformly with filiform papillae, among which no fungiformes are to be seen. The soft palate runs downwards as well as backwards; and its posterior portion, as Prof. Flower specially pointed out to me, so closely embraces the base of the tongue that, except when in the act of swallowing, the epiglottis always projects quite into the posterior narial chamber, as in the horse and many other animals. The anterior portion of the soft palate is | inch thick, and very glandular. A collection of glands of considerable size on each side of the fauces are the only representatives of the tonsils. The salivary glands present the usual characters. The parotid is much the largest. It weighs 1 lb. 1 oz., and is of an irregular semilunar shape, the concavity embracing the superior portion of the angle of the jaw; it is mostly situated between the body of the masseter and the posterior insertion of the sterno-mastoid muscle. It lies almost entirely below the level of the zygoma, sending up a small portion into the interval between it and the external auditory meatus. Its duct, which is 14 inches long, commences at the inferior angle of the gland, and, as in the Ungulata generally, runs round the lower margin of insertion of the masseter muscle, and up along its anterior border till it pierces the buccinator, to terminate by a simple orifice in the well-marked fossa between the cheek-pad described above and the superior gum, in a line with the interval between the first and second upper true molar teeth. The submaxillary gland weighs 2\ oz., and is irregularly cubical in shape. It is situated just under the angle of the jaw, covered by the digastric muscle. The duct is 13\ inches long ; anteriorly it is closely bound to the inner surface of the sublingual gland; and it opens far forwards, close to the frenum of the tongue, on either side of it. The sublingual gland weighs 2 oz., and is composed of several small portions which open separately almost in one straight line, about half an inch apart, below the sides of the tongue, and parallel with the ramus of the jaw. The whole gland is about 6 inches long and 1 inch deep. The oesophagus is thick and muscular, not of large calibre ; it has the mucous membrane but loosely connected with the muscular parietes, and arranged in bold longitudinal folds. The stomach is of a very different shape from that of the Indian Rhinoceros as figured and described by Prof. Owen, and in most respects resembles that of the horse. It forms a broad tube much bent upon itself, with the cardiac and pyloric orifices approximated, and a deep and narrow interval between them, in which the main vessels and nerves run, and across which the peritonaeum extends. There is no definite constriction between the cardiac and pyloric portions of the viscus ; but there is a peculiar diverticulum from the outer portion of the cardiac extremity, of a subconical form, in which the base of the cone is the attached end. The whole organ is there- |