MAMMALS. 591 



funnel, and in man and the apes is incised and curled at its margin, 

 which can be applied to the ovary in order to receive the ovum 

 from the Graafian vesicle when burst. In some mammals extra- 

 uterine conception is prevented by a production of the peritoneum 

 surrounding the ovary like a sac, and then uniting itself with the 

 widened extremity of the tube, so that the sac can be inflated from 

 the uterus; this is the case in Lutra, Mustela, Phoca, &C. 1 



The vagina in mammals is of various length; in the larger 

 species, longitudinal and transverse muscular fibres may be de- 

 tected in it; its inner surface is sometimes smooth in ruminants, 

 sometimes furnished with longitudinal (as in the mare, the sow,) or 

 transverse folds. Some mammals have a hymen or some folds that 

 correspond to it 2 . In all mammals a clitoris appears to be present, 

 and in those species of which the penis is supported by a small 

 bone, such a bone is often found in this organ also of the female 3 . 



In the male mammals there are always two testes present. In 

 some they are situated in the cavity of the abdomen, as in the 

 human foetus, close to the kidneys; such is the case in the Mono- 

 tremes, the elephant, the daman, many edentate and all cetaceous 

 animals. They are then retained in their place by a fold of the 

 peritoneum. In other mammals they are situated near the inte- 

 gument of the inferior surface of the abdomen, and in many, as in 

 most of the carnivores, the apes, &c. lie in a sac (scrotum] which 

 hangs under the pelvis, or, in the marsupiates, in front of the 

 pelvis. The tissue of the testes consists of numerous, long, narrow 

 and tortuous tubes, of the same width throughout; they do not 

 divide into branches and terminate in blind extremities. These 

 tubes afterwards unite at that side which is towards the epididymis 

 into fewer tubes, which by their communications form a network 

 from which the efferent vessels of the seminal fluid pass into the 

 epididymis, and unite to form a single tortuous tube of which the 



1 See on this last peculiarity G. R. TREVIRANOS in the Zeitickrift fur Physiol. 

 1824, i, 2, s. 180 188, and E. H. WEBER in MECKEL'S Archiv, 1826, s. 105 109. 

 Compare also on the Uterus, CUVIER Lep. d'Anat. comp. v. pp. 144 148 (new edit, 

 vin. pp. 30 41) ; see also BURDACH die Physiologic als Erfahrungsimssen^chaft, 

 2 Aufl. 1835, s. 154157, Tab. IV. 



2 CUVIER Lep. v. pp. 131, 132. 



3 CUVIER 1. 1. p. 127. The urethra perforates the clitoris in the Lemurids ; CUVIER 

 ibid, p, 130. 



