504 Zoological Society. 



Mr. Owen read the following Notes on the Anatomy of the Wom- 

 bat, Phascolomys Wombat, Per. 



" The anatomy of the Wombat having already engaged the atten- 

 tion of Cuvier ('Le9ons d'Anat. Compar6e,;;ass2>H) and Home (Phil. 

 Trans, vol. xcviii. 1808, p. 304,) but little remains to be added on 

 that subject. 



" The individual lately dissected at the Museum of the Zoological 

 Society had lived at the Gai'dens upwards of five years. The one 

 which was dissected by Sir Everard Home in 1 808 was brought from 

 one of the islands in Bass's Straits, and lived as a domestic pet in 

 the house of Mr. Clift for two years. This animal measured two feet 

 two inches in length, and weighed about 201bs. : it was a male. The 

 Society's specimen was a female, and weighed, when in full health 

 in October 1 833, 594-lbs. 



" On removing the integuments of the abdomen, much subcuta- 

 neous fat, of the lard kind, was observed. 



" The muscles of the abdomen presented the same arrangement as 

 ino^er Mar supiata; the internal pillars of the external abdominal 

 rings being formed by the marsupial bones, round which abroad cre- 

 master, emerging from each ring, wound inwards and upwards to ter- 

 minate by spreading over the mammary gland. 



" The digestive organs in the abdominal cavity presented a de- 

 velopment corresponding generally to that which characterizes the 

 same parts in the phytiphagous Rodents. 



" The stomach precisely corresponded with the description and 

 figure given by Home; but the occurrence of cardiac glands in the 

 Dormouse and Beaver renders a similar structure in this Marsupial, 

 in which the Rodent type of dentition exists, less extraordinary than 

 it might otherwise appear. The duodenum commenced by a large 

 pyriforra dilatation, similar to that in the Capybara and Spotted Paca ; 

 beyond this part it presented a diameter of an inch ; the small intes- 

 tines then gradually widened to a diameter of 14- inch, and as gra- 

 dually diminished again to the diameter of an inch : their entire 

 length was 11 feet 3 inches. 



" The ileum entered obliquely the wide sacculated colon, the bulging 

 commencement of which represented a short and wide cxcum ; and 

 from the angle between this part and the ileum, a cylindrical vermi- 

 form process 2 inches long, and 3 lines wide, was continued. 



" "The colon continued to be puckered up by two wide longitudinal 

 bands into large sacculi, which could be traced becoming less and less 

 distinct along an extent of the gut measuring five feet 2 inches. Cu- 

 vier observes that the large intestines were hardly more voluminous 

 than the small * ; in our specimen the colon measured 2-j- inches in 

 diameter, being more than double that of the ileum. But a more im- 

 portant diflference was observed in the presence of a second ccecum 

 at the distance from the first above mentioned. This consisted of a 

 pjTamidal pouch projecting 3 inches from the side of the gut, and 

 communicating freely with the same at its base : its parietes were 



* " Dans le Phascolome, les gros intestins ne sont guere plus volumineux 

 que les petits." Lemons d'Anat. Camp., nouv. ed. 



