| OCR Text |
Show 1906.] VASCULAR SYSTEM OF THE CROCODILIA. 621 abdominal vein not very far from the edge of the liver. In the smaller example of Osteolcemus tetrcispis which I have dissected I could detect no such connection at all; the two veins were quite independent throughout their course. In a larger specimen of this species, a vein ran from the left anterior abdominal and was observed to pass obliquely forwards; I lost it in the neighbourhood of the gall-bladder, and so am inclined to suspect that it did not join the right anterior abdominal but entered the liver separately. Its point of origin, moreover, was further forward than the connection in Crococlilus cataphractus. Text-fig. 105. A. Aorta; Az. Azygos of left side; L. Liver; B. Entrance into liver of veins connected with azygos. Though I am uncertain as to the destination of the branch of the left anterior abdominal vein in Osteolcemus, I have noted and been able to follow the course of an apparently identical vein in Caiman sclerops. The left vein in this Crocodilian is smaller than the right, and a little way behind the liver it divides into two branches, of which the right is rather the thicker. The latter enters the liver in the furrow between the two lobes and receives a branch from the stomach before so entering. The left branch enters the portal system of the left lobe. The division of the left |
