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Show 480 MR. G. W. BUTLER ON THE [June 14, sacs in the region of the liver. These authors are chiefly concerned with details as to the most posterior of the spaces described in this paper, especially as to its tapering forward and backward extensions. Some of their statements were in 1880 questioned by S. Jourdain ; and in 1882 Blanchard, in the light of new material, published a second paper (4) in which he modifies the account given in the former (3) 2. These authors refer us to Cuvier (1835), Dumeril and Bibron (1844), Siebold and Stannius (1848), and Milne-Edwards. I have of course carefully consulted these and also Owen, Hunter (' Essays and Observations,' edited by Owen), and various modern textbooks ; but I have not found anything on this subject to which it is worth while to refer the reader. Anatomists have as a rule kept clear of it ; and one feels that it would be often mere impertinence to criticise in detail the little that has been said. So far as m y search has gone, while here and there we find details of truth often mixed ' with more or less error, it may be said, speaking generally, that those authors who are not betrayed into including Snakes under their description of other reptiles, keep safe, by confining themselves to the most meagre details or to the most vague and general statements. For instance, Cuvier (Lecons d'Anat. Comp. 2nd ed. 1835, torn. iv. 2e part. pp. 670, 671) describes the relations of the pleuro-peritoneum in the Slowworm (Anguis fragilis), where we have the typical Lacertilian condition, and adds that in the true Snakes things are similar, but more complicated. In the paper above referred to (3) Lataste and Blanchard do an injustice to Cuvier by quoting this passage without the last " saving clause." List of Titles. [Snakes.] (1) RETZIUS.-"Anatomisk untersockning ofver nagra delar af Python bivittatus." Kon. Vet.-Akad. Handl. Stockholm, 1830, pp. 81-116. (2) RETZIUS.-[German version of the above]. " Isis," Leipzig, 1832, pp. 511-531. (3) F. L A T A S T E et R. B L A N C H A R D . - " Le Peritoine du Python de Seba." Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1879, pp. 95-112. (4) R. B L A N C H A R D . - " Nouvelles recherches sur le Peritoine du Python de Seba." Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1882. 1 Eevue Internationale des Sciences, 1880, p. 267. 2 W h a t chiefly interests these writers is a macroscopic connection which they find between the hinder division of the peritoneal cavity and the connective tissue in that region, and so possibly with tbe " cisterna magna" (grande cisterne retro-peritonale), and they add suggestive remarks as to the relations of ccelom, lymph-spaces, and connective tissue in general, and the inter-changeability of the two latter. There is, as they say, nothing essentially new involved, but it would be interesting, if their account be correct (but this is disputed), to see with the naked eye what is in other animals only to be seen with the microscope. |