112 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OP DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



the expulsiou of the spermatozoids aud tbeir projection iuto the vagina 

 of the female, the long duration of this function requiring a special aud 

 powerful apparatus. 



Female genital apparatus, (Plate 11, Fig. G).— As in almost all nema- 

 todes, the female generative organs comprise a uterus with two long 

 branches narrowing abruptl}^ into a tubular iwrtion, the ovary proper. 

 We have not been able to discover a bag-pipe-like swelling near the 

 commencement of the ovary which E, Perrier has seen in the Redruris 

 armata, and which he calls the copulation pouch (vesicula copulatrix). 

 Neither this pouch nor anything similar to it exists in the Syngamus. 



The vulva, as has been stated, is a small opening pierced through the 

 summit of a hemispherical papilla which is permanently covered by the 

 caudal bursa of the male. The vagina, the canal which penetrates the 

 papilla, is very narrow. Lodging the spicules of the male it serves as a 

 passage for the spermatozoids which the male pours into it during his 

 entire adult existence. It will be readily understood that it never ful- 

 fills the function of oviduct, since the inseparable union of male aud fe- 

 male renders the discharge of ova through the vagina impossible. 



The vagina is continued into a short, enlarged uterus, about .G'"'" (.024 

 inch) long and broad, which divides into two long cylindrical horns, 

 having a diameter of .3°^'" (.012 inch) at the base and .25'""^ (.009 inch) 

 at the apex. They are about three times as long as the intestine, about 

 which they coil in the most capricious windings. The uterus and its 

 horns are filled with ova, the development of which proceeds with the 

 age of the worm, as we shall see further on. Each horn at its apex 

 contracts abruptly into a short cone, and is continued by a small tube 

 about .05"°^ (.002 inch) in diameter, which might be likened to a Fal- 

 lopian tube. After a distance of 3™"" (.118 inch) these tubes gradually 

 dilate into tubes of twice their diameter, filled with spherical, granular 

 corpuscles, compressed and crowded together in one or two rows. These 

 are the ovules, the tubes containing them, the ovaries. As long as the 

 uterine horns, these tubes are wound in a thousand different ways about 

 the intestine, then contract each into a tube as narrow as the Fallopian 

 tubes (or oviducts), containing only amorphous matter, and lastly ter- 

 minate in a cul-de-sac devoid of dilatation or enlargement. 



Amongst the ova filling the uterus and its horns, we have determined 

 the presence of spermatozoids closely resembling those contained in the 

 vesicula seminalis aud the vas deferens of the male, but we have not 

 succeeded in seeing them elsewhere. We believe that the fecundation 

 is effected in the uterine horns near the ovarian extremity upon the 

 ovules brought there by the Fallopian tubes, since there is here no or- 

 gan similar to the vesicula coi)ulatrix, which E. Perrier has pointed out 

 in the Hedruris armata. 



