116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1887. 



Scollick kindly placed in his hands an example of the uterus, con- 

 taining a perfect foetus of this interesting little arboreal South 

 American Ant-eater. The only description of the foetus and mem- 

 branes of this animal which the speaker had been able to find, was 

 by Mayer, in his Analeeta, while Milne-Edwards has figured and 

 described the fretus and membranes of the allied form, Tcmiandua, 

 in the "Annales des Sciences Naturelles." 



The almost globular uterus, containing a well-developed foetus, in 

 the specimen exhibited at the meeting of the Academy, was about 

 one inch in diameter. The placenta was relatively large, dome- 

 shaped, or in the form of a disk, seven-eighths of an inch in diame- 

 ter, much thickened in the center and becoming abrui:)tly thin at 

 its margin. Its outer or maternal surface was very convex and its 

 inner or fcetal surface distinctly concave. Tlie rather short, stout 

 umbilical cord was attached at about the center of the disk and to 

 its inner surface. The placental disk when carefully inspected 

 upon its inner surface was found to be distinctly lobulated, some- 

 what as in the Sloths, as described by Sir Wm. Turner. The 

 fissures which divided the placental disk were especially conspicuous 

 when the edges of the disk were slightly bent by the fingers towards 

 the convex side. 



The uterine cornua were short, and the uterus was simj^le as in 

 man and the sloths ; the oviducts apparently quite small ; the 

 ovaries of strikingly unequal dimensions on opposite sides. No 

 portion of the uterus was exserted or projected into the vagina as 

 in man, but the walls of the vagina passed directly into those of the 

 uterus. The vaginal nuicous membrane was, however, deeply 

 plicated in a longitudinal direction, these plications extending 

 slightly into the cavity of the uterus. 



The vessels of the cord are subdivided at their insertion into the 

 placental disk ; arterial and venous branches going to and fi*om the 

 several placental lobes, of which there were five, Avhich could be 

 distinctly made out. 



On the inner surface of the uterine walls, there were apparently 

 adherent portions of the fetal and maternal tissues of the placenta, 

 showing that this type is in all probability more or less deciduate, 

 notwithstanding the fact that the uterine walls are relatively quite 

 thin. The area embraced by the true chorion or placenta covered 

 very nearly one-half of the inner surface of the globularly distended 

 uterus. The fixlse chorion made up the other half of the membran- 

 ous investment of the fretus and was quite thin and translucent. It 

 covered with its outer surface about half of the inside of the uterus, or 

 that hemisphei'e of the latter at the pole of which the vagina opened 

 from without. The foetus itself was well advanced, having as yet no 

 outward hairy coat, nor could any traces of hair follicles be noted in 

 the skin. No epitrichium was observed, though this may be devel- 

 oped at a later period, or after the hair is erupted from the folli- 

 cles. Tlie total length of the foetus was nearly or quite three 

 inches, of which the long stout tail formed more than a third. 



