In fishes the stomach is usually long and tapering, but the whole alimentary canal is frequently shorter than the fish. Their food is chiefly animal, and easy of digestion. In the batraehians we first meet with a structure of the mucous vat of the stomach bearing a resemblance to that of mammals. The stomach of the toad has gastric follicles which secrete a gastric fluid having properties like that secreted by the stomachs of higher animals, and the intestines present a beautiful arrangement of the capillary blood vessels. The ophidian reptiles have large and distensible stomachs for the reception of their prey, but their digestion is sluggish. In the ehelonians there is a great advance. The gastric cells are large, and are freely traversed by capillary blood-vessels. In birds there is considerable variety in the form and extent of the stomach and alimentary canal, depending upon their habits. See BIRDS, ante. In mammals there is more variety than in birds, as their structure and habits are more variable. Carnivorous animals require a much less complicated digesting apparatus than omnivorous or herbivorous. See RIJIII NANTLk, ante. The great ant-eater has, however, an apparatus in many respects resembling that of a common fowl, while the blood-sucking bat (desnwdus) has a stomach whose capacity has more relations to. its office of receiver than of digester, the pyloric end, where digestion is performed in this case, being very small, but sufficient for the disposal of the easily digested food. The cardiac portion is ,enormously elongated above time
entrance of cesophagus, forming an elongated me= in contact at its further end with .the spleen. There is considerable variety in the digestive apparatus of the quadrnmoma. The semnopithecus entellus, or sacred monkey of India, has an enormous stomach. A full-grown female of this species, examined by prof. Owen, had a stomach which, when distended and dried, measured 2 ft. 7 in. along the greater curvature, and 1 ft. along the lesser. Its greatest circumference was 1 ft., and its least, about 2 in. above the pyloric orifice, was 3i- in. Prof. Owen says that it may be regarded as consisting of three divi sions: a cardiac pouch, a middle, sacculated portion, and a narrow, elongated canal, sacculated at its commencement and simple near its termination, which portion lie con siders to be the digesting portion of the organ. In the genus cercopithecus, which was formerly ranked with semnopithecus, the stomach has the usual simple construction, resdmbling that of most quadrumana and of man. It is generally thought that this enlarged stomach is not because of the vegetable-eating habits of the entellus, but as an offset to its want of cheek pouches, which other monkeys have, for the purpose of tem porarily stowing away food.