BY J. J. FLETCHER, M.A., B.Sc. 799 



Again on p. 228, speaking of the impregnated uterus Sir 

 Everard says "the uterus and two lateral canals have their 

 cavities very much increased in size but that of the uterus is the 

 most enlarged : the communication between these canals and the 

 vagina is completely cut off, by the constricted part close to the 

 vagina being filled with a thick inspissated mucus ; and in this 

 state of the parts there is an orifice very distinctly to be seen 

 close to the meatus urinarius, large enough to admit a hog's 

 bristle, leading directly into the uterus where in the virgin state 

 no such passage could be observed." 



Finally on p. 229 of his paper Home says that " immediately 

 after parturition, the parts are nearly brought back into their 

 original state, the only circumstance deserving of notice is, that 

 the opening leading directly from the uterus to the vagina, which 

 is not met with in the virgin state, after being enlarged by the 

 passage of the foetus, forms a projecting orifice and almost wholly 

 conceals the meatus urinarius." 



Substiantially the same views are stated in Vol. III., Lect. 

 xii., of the same writer's Lectures on Comparative Anatomy. 



Cuvier in his Lecons d'Anat. Comp., says that he found no 

 opening in the mesial cul-de-sac as described by Home. Not 

 having the opportunity of again referring to the Lecons I am 

 unable to give Cuvier' s exact words. 



In 1828 Seiler published a paper* founded upon the dissection 

 of a female kangaroo and its mammary foetus. Referring to the 

 point now in question, he says : " One still finds in several recent 

 memoirs, the old opinion repeated, that at the time of the first 

 delivery of the foetus an aperture in the neck of the uterus 

 originates immediately behind the opening of the urethra, through 

 which the embryo is born. This view seemed so improbable to 

 me, notwithstanding Home's observations in favour of it, that I 

 not only examined the uterus very carefully, but also so 



* Ieia von Oken, Vol. xii., 1828, pp. 475-477. 



