REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS 783 
if not a difficult matter. The ripe eggs are received by the 
Oviducts, which furnish them with the ‘ white albumen,” the shell- 
membrane and the shell, before expelling them into the CLOACA 
(pp. 197, 198). In young birds both oviducts are almost equally 
developed, but the right one soon becomes reduced to an insignifi- 
cant ligamentous strand along the ventral side of part of the 
Kidney. ‘This one-sided suppression of the organs may possibly 
be referable to the inconvenience that might be caused were each 
oviduct to contain an egg ready to be deposited. Practically the 
Oviduct is a gut-like tube suspended by its own mesentery and open- 
ing by a wide slit-like infundibulum into the body-cavity near the 
Ovary. ‘This upper portion of the Oviduct, corresponding with the 
Fallopian tube of human anatomy, has extremely thin walls, while 
peritoneal elastic lamelle attach it to the hinder margin of the left 
LUNG in such a way as to secure the reception of any ripe egg that 
may burst from the Ovary. The next portion of the Oviduct is 
much narrower with thick glandular walls, which, twisting and 
turning irregularly, secrete the albumen, and it is connected by a 
constricted portion, the isthmus (p. 197), with a dilated ‘‘ uterus,” 
situated on the ventral and partly on the right side of the Recrum 
and cloaca. The walls of the isthmus deposit the shell-membrane, 
while those of the uterus secrete the calcareous shell and the pigment, 
and the uterus leads into a rather glandless portion, the “ vagina” 
(which in a common Fowl is about an inch, and in a Goose two 
inches in length) opening into the dorsal wall of the urodzeum 
(p. 90) to the left of the urethral papilla. 
Microscopically examined, the structure of the parts above 
mentioned is seen to be as follows—The whole duct consists of four 
layers: (1) an outer peritoneal, mesenteric lamella; (2) a layer of 
smooth unstriped muscular and, for the most part, longitudinal 
fibres, most numerous in the uterus and the vagina, but scanty or 
absent in the infundibulum; (3) connective tissue with blood- 
vessels ; and (4) the tunica mucosa, mucous membrane, which in 
the infundibulum is thin and contains numerous cells with cilia, 
the vibrating motion of which propels the ovum downward. In 
the other portions of the duct the mucous membrane forms from 
ten to twenty or even more folds, and contains numerous secreting 
glands. 
During the breeding-season the whole Oviduct is in a state of 
hypertrophic turgescence. In the common Fowl at the period of 
rest it will be only some six or seven inches long and scarcely a 
1 This is so often the case that the usual notes on the labels which collectors 
attach to their specimens are at that season mostly the expression of fancy. The 
vicinity of the suprarenal capsules, which are of a pale yellow colour and 
‘‘sranular” in appearance, makes them liable to be mistaken for ovaries, or 
more often for the testes when in a dormant and much reduced condition. 
