106 Zoological Collections, Vertebrata. 



by its mane, tbe urus by tbe great size of its horns. It is not improbable 

 that the Bison mentioned by Seneca and Pliny was the Bonasus of Aristotle, 

 and the Zubr and Aueroclis of the moderns, while the Urus of these 

 writers seems to be now extinct as a wild animal, but Mas perhaps the 

 original of our present domestic cattle.* Fossil bones are found, nearly 

 resembling those of the common ox, which Cuvier conceives may have 

 belonged to animals of the original race ; and it is worthy of remark, that the 

 word Ur signifies a bull in the present dialect of several of the Swiss 



cantons Dr von Jauocki, Zuhr oder der lithuanische Auerochs. Hamburgh, 



. 1830, with 2 plates. 



Hermaphrodism Two hermaphrodite goats have lately been subjected to 



the examijiatiou of scientific men. 



1. There was dissected at Naples, by order of the King, the generative 

 system of a goat, which presented, below the orifice of the anus, an oval 

 opening, which terminated on a level with the o)'igin of a penis, furnished 

 with a well-formed prepuce. The animid had such a vehement salacity, as 

 a female, that, when it was not satisfied by the ordinary intercourse with the 

 male, it introduced its own penis, curved across the opening, into the vulva. 

 The aperture of the vidva and orifice of the ureters terminated in a common 

 canal, placed between the anus and the penis, and of a diameter sufficient to 

 receive the male organ during sexual connection. The vagina exhibited the 

 usual rugse. The uterus was completely developed, but its opening ^vas entirely 

 obliterated. The fallopian tubes were wanting. The cavity of the uterus 

 contained a whitish tumour, the product of follicidar secretion, perhaps 

 owing to the constant state of erythisrn in which the animal continued. The 

 two testicles gave origin each to a vas deferens, which adhered to the lateral 

 walls of the vagina, a]ul terminated, near its origin, in the vesiculse scminales, 

 which had an external opening. The ovaries had attained a complete 

 development. {Brcvi cenni su di un neutro capra, Pamphlet in 8vo, Napoli.) 

 — Archives generales, xxiv. 146. 



2. At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, on the 9th August 

 last, M. GeoflT. St Hilairc communicated a case of true hermaphrodism 

 observed in a goat at the Javdin du Roi. Almost all the reported cases of 

 hermaphrodites, he observed, are, in reality, nothing but males or females, 

 whose generative organs present some anomalies liable to produce an illusion 

 at the first glance. But the present instance Avas of a diflferent character. 

 The external organs of generation were plainly those of a female, whilst the 

 reproductive or internal organs were male. 



The memoirs of the academy of Dijon contain a description of a perfectly 

 similar case observed in a man, who died in 1767, at the age of seventeen. 

 It was an observation made by M. Maret, father of the Duke of Bassano. 

 Hermaphrodism in the vertebrata, however, is exceedingly rare. 



In the case of the goat, hermaphrodism was perfect as to anatomy, but not 

 as to function. The functions of generation did not exist ; certain parts and 

 certain dispositions in the two kinds of apparatus, necessary for accomplish- 

 ing this function, were wanting. Thus, there were ligamentous testicular 

 cords, not giving passage to any secretion, and in place of an uterus, a vagi- 

 nal cul-de-sac, whicli was physiologically useless. 



The theoretical deduction which M. St Hilaire drew from these two last 

 facts, was that the external organs of generation are independent of the 

 internal organs. — Ann. des Sci. Nat. Sept. 1830. 



Birds of the Himalaya Mountains In another part of the present Num- 

 ber, we have noticed the first Fasciculus of Gould's Century of Birds from 

 the Himalaya Mountains, regretting the delay in the publication of the 



* Bojanus, however, is of a different opiaion, (De uro nostrate. &c. Nova Acta Acad. 

 Nat Cur. xiu. 411.) 



