BY T. THOMSON FLYNN, B.SC. 145 



My best thanks are due to the following gentlemen 

 for the loan of literature : —Prof essors J. T. Wilson and 

 W. A. Haswell, and Acting Professor Johnston. 



I am able to confirm and considerably augment my 

 account of the genital organs in thisi genus. 



I have nothing to add to my previous account of the 

 external form of the female organs, except that in this 

 specimen the Fallopian tubes seem slightly more con- 

 voluted than in the former specimen. 



STRUCTURE OF THE VIRGIN UTERUS. 



Fig. 1 represents a transverse section of the uteiiis 

 of the virgin. From side to side the whole uterine 

 body is flattened, containing consequently a corre- 

 spondingly flattened lumen. Each dorsal and ventral 

 wall of the uterus is raised into a rounded fold, separated 

 from the lateral uterine wall by deep grooves. With the 

 exception of these grooves the inner surface of the uterus 

 is quite smooth. 



A somewhat enlarged section of the uterus is shown in 

 Fig. 2. The inner covering of the uterine wall is a thin 

 epithelium consisting partly of cells with rounded nuclei 

 partly of columnar cells mixed indiscriminately. It 

 raeasiu'es in tliickness about .012 mms. The uterine glands 

 have an epithelium continuous with the inner uterine 

 epithelium., but noi columnar cells are present in it. The 

 glands are slightly convoluted tubes with an average 

 diameter of .009 mms. The mucosa is well defined and 

 sharply marked off from the muscularis. It containsi large 

 numbers of uterine glands, but in no case did I find these 

 to penetrate the muscularis. The tissue of the mucosa 

 is of the nature of a loose network, the nuclei of whose 

 cells become aggregated for the most part round the uterine 

 glands, the vessels, and just below the uterine epithelium. 

 The vessels which supply the mucosa, after piercing the 

 muscularis, lie for the most part in the lower portion of 

 this layer, although fine capillan^ branches supply the 

 inner portion of the mucosa. For the most paxt the 

 vessels have es:tremely thin and ill defined walls. The 

 average thickness of the mucosa is .71 mms. 



The muscularis is a definite layer, .032 mms in average 

 thickness, consisting of circularly running plain fibres only. 



