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Show 288 MR. A. H. GARROD ON THE MUSK-DEER. [Mar. 20, the only organ which gave any proof of lesion being the psalterium, which several minute abscesses were found along the attached margins of several of the laminae. Zoologically the specimen has given me the opportunity of verifying many of the statements both of Pallas in his exhaustive treatise on the animal1, and of Prof. Flower in his memoir above referred to. My own attention having been much devoted of late to the anatomy of the Ruminantia, I was particularly pleased at having the opportunity of dissecting the species, especially as it was of the male sex, and as Prof. Flower has most kindly allowed me to compare its viscera with those of the female specimen in the Museum of the College of Surgeons. Considering the various organs seriatim, I found that the tongue greed exactly with that figured by Prof. Flower, as did the epiglottis in being pointed in the middle line, and the stomach in its general configuration. In the rumen the villi were shorter than in most of the Cervidae and more sparsely scattered. There were no traces of any special glandular pouch on the anterior wall of the viscus. In the reticulum the shallow cells were peculiar in being comparatively small, and more numerous than is generally the case. The psalterium did not differ, except in the number of its lamellae, from the description given by Pallas; and it appears to me that Prof. Flower, at the same time that he was the first to lay proper stress upon its non-typical nature, hardly read correctly the account given by the earlier observer; for in the College specimen, although the rows of papillae are particularly feeble, nevertheless it might be said of them " inter majores laminas rugae intercalares, vel lamellulae ac-cessoriae angustiores." In the stomach under consideration they are much more conspicuous. The organ is therefore dupliciplieate, and differs from that of any other Ruminant examined by me, as I have elsewhere shown2, in that the lamellae are arranged more closely than is usually the case, and at the same time there is a great deficiency in minor folds, and an excess of those of higher degree. Pallas counted 23 or 25 major lamellae in the psalterium of his specimens; Prof. Flower, 19 in his; there were 21 in the specimen now under consideration. The small intestine was 24 feet 2 inches in length, the large intestine measuring 11 feet 9 inches, and the caecum 5^ inches. There were three and a half double turns in the colic coil, which is one more than is generally found in larger species, and two more than is frequently observed in smaller ones. Both the caecum and the colon were curiously mottled from the collection of fat in the course of the vessels traversing their surface, as is mentioned by Pallas, and shown in his figure of the former organ. With reference to the peculiar dilatation of the colon in the region of the ileo-caecal valve, this is produced by the considerable development of a glandular surface, which is quite as well marked in the Giraffe (Camelopardalis giraffa), as was first pointed out by Dr. T. 1 Spicilegia Zoologica, fasciculus xiii. (1779). 2 Antea, p. 8. |