Fig. 290 shows the abdominal cavity of _Nasua rufa_, with great omentum divided to bring into view the vessels passing from coeliac axis to liver and stomach and elevating the retrogastric parietal peritoneum to produce the pancreatico-gastric folds. (The course of the hepatic artery from coeliac axis to liver in the dorsal view in the cat is seen in Fig. 223.) [Illustration: FIG. 291.--Schematic transection through foramen of Winslow before adhesion of dorsal mesogastrium and mesoduodenum to parietal peritoneum.] [Illustration: FIG. 292.--The same section after the adult conditions have been established by adhesion.] Figs. 291 and 292 represent schematically cross-sections directly through the foramen of Winslow, showing the method by means of which the hepatic artery reaches the upper border of the duodenum and the effect of the adhesion of duodenum and mesoduodenum upon the disposition of the vessel. The coronary artery, like the splenic, is at first situated between the layers of the dorsal mesogastrium (vertebro-splenic segment). Like the splenic the coronary artery becomes anchored to the abdominal background and placed secondarily behind the parietal peritoneum of the lesser sac by the adhesion of this mesogastric segment to the primitive parietal peritoneum. To reach the lesser curvature at the cardia and to run thence from left to right along the lesser curvature between the layers of the gastro-hepatic omentum, the vessel raises the investing parietal peritoneum (originally the right leaf of the dorsal mesogastrium) into a crescentic fold, extending between its origin from the coeliac axis at cephalic margin of pancreas and the beginning of the lesser curvature of the stomach. Hence this fold is called the left pancreatico-gastric fold. (Seen well in Fig. 284.) In the next place it must be borne in mind that the relation of the primitive hepatic artery to the vascular supply of the stomach, pancreas and duodenum produces a permanent shortening of the primitive mesentery at this point. This result is indicated in the schematic figures 287, 288 and 289. In the original condition the dorsal mesentery, passing to a practically straight intestinal tube, is of uniform sagittal measure (Fig. 287).