850 president's address. 



put forth in the last paragraph quoted, for assistance in procur- 

 ing specimens for further anatomical researches : — "In his 

 classical paper on the "Generation of Marsupial Animals " (1834), 

 Professor Owen, the distinguished authority on Marsupial 

 anatomy, opposed the view put forward by Sir Everard Home 

 (1798) that a direct communication existed under certain circum- 

 stances between the median vaginal cul-de-sac and the urogenital 

 passage, by which the foetus of the kangaroo passed into the 

 latter cavity. Subsequently having himself met with the direct 

 communication in Halmaturus Bennettii, Professor Owen admitted 

 (1865) its existence in the genus Halmaturus, but still contended 

 for the csecal condition of the cul-de-sac in the genus Macropus. 

 Further investigation has since shown that the latter condition 

 does not hold, for at any rate, one species of this genus, viz., 

 Macropus rufus ; and, indeed, there are indications that the 

 existence of the direct communication is normal after parturition 

 in kangaroos generally. With greater facilities of obtaining 

 more abundant supplies of satisfactory material than falls to the 

 lot of observers in distant lands, I hope in time to make a com- 

 plete series of observations on the organs of all accessible species. 

 In the paper recently brought under the notice of the Linnean 

 Society of New South "Wales, I began by giving some account of 

 the controversy and the literature relating to the subject, and 

 then described the results arrived at from the examination of the 

 first lot of material which came to hand. These were that in 

 females belonging to Osphr antes robustus, ITalmaturu-? ruficolis, and 

 Petrogalepenicillata, species, with one exception, hitherto seemingly 

 uninvestigated, the direct communication does exist after partu- 

 rition, while in virgin females belonging to the first and last of 

 these species, which are all I have so far had the opportunity of 

 examining, the direct communication does not actually exist, 

 though the condition met with is different to what has been 

 described in Macropus major, inasmuch as the tissue of the cul-de- 

 sac is continuous with that of the urogenital passage. En passant 



