Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/185

179 JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO N. W. AMERICA. 179 here in the greatest profusion. The individuals we pro- cured were about 2 feet in length, & had white spots along their sides. The anal fins of the males has a curi- ous appendix in common with the other sp. of the genus. The appendix consists of three claws analogous to the claws of birds. All these claws are of different shapes ; one of them was quite obtuse, the middle one was hooked, the external one was quite straight. The sesophagus was furnished with tubercles, perfectly analogous to those of the marine testudines, in their structure, & probably they are for the same use. The stomach large & contained many longitudinal plicse and terminated in a very narrow pylorus. The intestinal canal was short, but exceedingly capacious, & its internal surface was furnished with a very complicated set of valvulae conniventes. The spleen & pan- creas were of moderate size. The liver was very large, & consisted of two nearly equal & very large lobes, extend- ing from above the stomach to the anus. The testicles were large, oblong ovate bodies, situated near the superior extremity of the liver ; they had very long & convoluted spermacetic tubes laying close to the spine. The ova of the female I found in all stages of development. They varied in number from twelve to fifteen. In their early stages they were perfectly spherical, & had on their sur- face a small cicatrix the size of a pea; the whole egg in this stage might be the size of a turtle's. At a more ad- vanced period, the ova exhibited a beautifull appearance ; after cutting through the membraneous & very vascular uterus, an exceedingly delicate & transparent chorion was exposed, & the young animals were seen moving about with great vivacity in an amber coloured liquor amnii. They were about two inches long, & were connected to the ovum by a short cord. When put into a bucket of sea water they moved with the utmost liveliness.