20G 



sertion of the ureters with a note of admiration ; and I am not 

 aware that a parallel structure has since been discovered in any 

 animal possessing an urinary bladder. It is not, however, precisely 

 in the fundus or summit of the bladder that the ureters open ; they 

 enter between the muscular fibres at the back part of the fundus, at 

 the angles, analogous to the situation at which the tubes Fallopianee 

 enter the human uterus ; but they run obliquely downwards and 

 inwards for 2 lines before they terminate, leaving, however, a full 

 inch of space between them and the orifice of the urethra. The 

 long diameter of the distended bladder is 1 inch 4 lines. For 

 what purpose this structure is designed in the Hyrax, or whether 

 the urine undergoes any change in consequence of it, I cannot 

 conjecture ; but it is a curious fact, that, according to Hemprich, 

 both the natives of Arabia, and the boors of the Cape, regard the 

 urine of Hyrax as medicinal. 



" In accordance with the length of the loins in Hyrax, (a circum- 

 stance which Cuvier particularly notices,) the parts in relation with 

 that region seem peculiarly elongated. The muscular part of the 

 urethra is a full inch in length, and the vesiculee seminales, opening 

 into the termination of this part, lie on either side of it, so that their 

 apices only reach the bladder. The vasa deferentia also are much 

 longer than is usually seen in the true Testiconda, the testes being 

 situated just below the kidneys, 3 inches anterior to the bladder. 

 Pallas has accurately described their form and situation, and also 

 the course of the vasa deferentia, and the convoluted mass, like a 

 second epididymis, behind the bladder. They terminate distinctly 

 from the ducts of the vesiculee seminales, beneath a valvular fold of 

 the inner membrane of the urethra, at the termination of the mus- 

 cular part of that canal. These vasa deferentia are remarkably at- 

 tenuated, as in all Testiconda, before they reach the bladder; they 

 then begin to enlarge, and by means of their convolutions, must 

 form a considerable receptacle for the semen. Yet here the vesiculee 

 seminales are as large and complex, proportionally, as in the Boar, 

 a circumstance which seems to afford a strong additional argument 

 to those advanced by Tyson (Phil. Trans., xiii. p. 370,) and Hunter 

 (Anim. CEcon., p. 31,) against their supposed use as mere recep- 

 tacles. 



" These vesiculee seminales were situated on either side the mus- 

 cular part of the urethra ; not behind the bladder, but in the space 

 between it and the bulb of the urethra. They were each lj inch in 

 length, and 8 lines in breadth, giving off a number of short wide 

 processes, which, as they are compacted together, give to the ex- 

 ternal surface a brain-like appearance. Their ducts are wide, and 

 terminate behind the valvular fold at the end of the muscular part 

 of the urethra. 



" Two prostate glands, of a tubular structure, lie at the lower 

 ends of the vesiculee seminales. 



" The bulb of the urethra commences by a wide cul-de-sac : the 

 spongy part of the urethra, which forms its parietes, is 2 lines in 

 thickness, and this is embraced by accelerators of remarkable 



