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Show 32 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE [Jan. 16, It measures 19| inches in length. The base of the heart lies 4J inches from the tip of the snout. The liver, which is 7 inches long, commences just at the heart as in Yipers. The gall-bladder lies 14 inches behind the tip of the snout. The kidneys are elongated, and not particularly shortened as in Eryx. The right kidney, 23 m m . long, ends 21 m m . in front of cloaca. The left kidney, 21 m m . long, ends 11 m m . in front of cloaca. The right testis begins 10 m m . behind the gall-bladder; the left testis begins 9 m m . behind end of right testis. The lung of Ilysia is single *, and the vascular part, which is of considerable thickness, extends for a considerable way down the liver, being some 2| inches in length. The windpipe, as is usual, is formed of incomplete rings, a fibrous fold connecting them along its entire length. Just before the trachea opens into the lung there is a minute orifice which represents the 2nd bronchus; but there is no approximation to an equality between the two bronchi such as exists in the Boine snakes. The end of the trachea, that is, of course, of the only functional bronchus, extends some little way into the lung before it disappears. This disappearance is not quite abrupt; the rings of the bronchus cease just before the end to be circular, transversely-arranged cartilages; they anastomose with each other, and finally assume a honeycomb disposition, precisely like the lining-membrane of the ensuing lung. Still the bronchial region can be distinguished from the pulmonary by its bluish colour. Alimentary Caned.-The condition of preservation of the specimen which I have dissected, and the comparatively empty alimentary canal, render it possible to give an accurate account of the ruga3 and plications of the different regions, which is not always so easy. There are, moreover, obvious differences between Ilysia and some other snakes, both in the structure and proportions of the several regions of the alimentary tube. The cesophagus extends to the posterior end of the liver, where it more or less suddenly passes into the stomach. Internally the demarcation is quite abrupt. It is shown, in fact, by the different nature of the folds of mucous membrane which line the two sections of the anterior part of the alimentary canal. The stomach in its anterior part is lined by three, and three only, thick longitudinally-running folds. At the junction of stomach and (esophagus these thick folds disappear as such, and are either nearly or quite continuous, with at least six similar but much smaller folds. There is thus a perfectly obvious demarcation between oesophagus and stomach. The stomach itself is 56 m m. (or about 2 inches) long, and is plainly divisible into two regions: the first of these is much the larger and measures 48 mm.; the second is about coextensive with the gall-bladder, which is attached to it and measures 8 m m . The larger anterior region of the * As Mr. Butler (P. Z. S. 1895, p. 704) and others have noted. |