The material used in this investigation was taken from young animals at the end of a feeding period of about five months, and towards the end of the hibernating period after fasting for four or five months.
The regions of the enteron that were studied were as follows: the tip and base of the tongue; the anterior and posterior regions of the roof of the mouth; the anterior and posterior regions of the œsophagus; the cardiac, fundic, and pyloric regions of the stomach; the anterior, middle, and posterior regions of the small intestine; the anterior and posterior regions of the large intestine. Since the work was started at the end of the hibernating period, the tissues of that period were studied and drawn first.
The only difference between the structure of the tip of the tongue during hibernation and during the feeding season is that the scaly epithelium with which it is covered is somewhat thicker and more compact in the former than in the latter condition, though even this difference may have been due to differences in the ages of the animals used. The base of the tongue differs from the tip in having a thicker epithelium and in having compound tubulo-alveolar glands. These glands in the hibernating animal have many more alveoli than in the feeding animal, though this, again, may have been due to the difference in age.
The lining of the roof of the mouth is essentially the same as that of the tongue. The glands are found only in the posterior region. The slight differences in the papillæ here found may easily be due to the difference in age.
The œsophagus shows the usual layers for that region. Its epithelium is partly ciliated in the anterior part. The muscularis mucosa is very scant in the anterior region. The only difference between the two stages is that in the feeding the muscularis mucosa in the anterior region is much more strongly developed than in the hibernating stage; and in the former the nuclei of the epithelium are not arranged in two zones as in the latter.
The stomach has the usual layers, and has essentially the same structure in the three regions studied, except that the wall in the fundic region is much the thickest, due mainly to the great thickness of the middle muscle layer. Only one kind of cell is found in the gastric glands. No difference is to be noted between the hibernating and feeding conditions.
The chief peculiarity of the small intestine is the apparent entire absence of the submucosa. Goblet cells are also wanting. The greater diameter of the anterior region is due both to the greater diameter of the lumen and to the greater thickness of the walls. The middle and posterior regions have about the same diameter, though the mucosa becomes thinner and less complicated caudad. There is practically no difference between the hibernating and feeding stages.
The anterior and posterior regions of the large intestine have essentially the same structure. No difference can be seen between the hibernating and feeding conditions.
CHAPTER VI
THE UROGENITAL ORGANS
Figure [54] represents the urogenital apparatus of a thirty-inch female specimen of Alligator mississippiensis. [Figure 55] shows the corresponding organs of a male A. lucius; reproduced from Bronn.