6 RICHARD ASSHETON AND THOMAS G,. STEVENS. 
attention to is the fact that there are numerous arborescent 
villi along this region, the smallest of which are exactly 
similar to the small villi of the subcircular villous patches of 
the poles. 
These villi have the appearance of having come out of 
their maternal crypts without bringing away any maternal 
tissue. Nor is there any trace of maternal tissue to be 
detected among them unless the brown granular matter is 
maternal; so that this region is as diffuse and non-deciduate 
as the subcircular polar patches. 
Section I. 
Histology of the After-birth of the Elephant. 
With reference to the macroscopic characters of the foetal 
membranes we have nothing beyond the remarks made above 
to add to the descriptions of Owen and Chapman. 
The portions which we have had for microscopical investi- 
gation are pieces of the thick zonary placental area and 
certain curious disc-like bodies which are found scattered 
over the extra-placental parts of the foetal membranes and 
noticed by Owen, who spoke of them as “the subcircular 
bodies.” 
This material had been preserved in a saturated solution of 
corrosive sublimate and kept subsequently in strong alcohol. 
In a section taken through the whole thickness of the 
zonary region of the after-birth we distinguish three well- 
marked layers or regions which, commencing from the 
chorionic surface next the foetus and representing the inner 
surface of the amnion, are, firstly, a layer of some 2-3 mm. 
in thickness, composed of fibrous tissue containing feetal 
blood-vessels, fig. 1 (A). Secondly, a middle layer, by far 
the thickest of the three, being 30-35 mm. thick, made up of a 
close tangle of foetal and maternal blood-channels, fig. 1 (B), 
and thirdly, the more maternal surface along which the 
rupture between after-birth and uterus has occurred, fig. 1 
(C), with a thickness of about 8 mm, 
