ON THE ANATOMY OP THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT. 61 



Fig. 8. 



Opening of urethra (U) into the urino-genital canal, about natural size (somewhat 

 diagrammatic). The walls of the urino-genital canal are cut close round the 

 urethral eminence. M.C. Malpighian canals ; below (anterior to) the letters is 

 seen the constriction separating the vagina from the urino-genital canal ; on the 

 top of the urethral eminence is seen the small free point ; below it is the cul-de-sac 

 of the urino-genital canal. 

 N.B. In the natural position the lower parts of the figure are anterior, the upper 



parts posterior. 



The secondary vagina, which lies behind the neck of the bladder, is 

 separated by a constriction, leaving only a very small opening, from the 

 urino-genital chamber, which is marked off by the livid blue colour of 

 its mucous membrane from the parts already described. On each side 

 of this median constriction lies a small obliquely-placed slit, about | inch 

 long, and admitting a probe for about the same distance into the small 

 sacs (canals of Malpighi), of which they are the openings. Exactly the 

 same arrangement occurs in the Indian Elephant. There is no trace of p. z. S. 1879. 

 any hymen-like organ dividing this median constriction into two, such P- 435 - 

 as noticed by Miall and Greenwood (I. c. pi. iv. fig. 3, h). This point 

 about corresponds with the entrance of the genital organs into the pelvis. 



Perrault describes and figures (pi. 22) in his example two " valves 

 sigmoides,'*' which guarded the " orifice interne de la matrice," and also 

 a " rebord qui s'avan9oit au-devant du col de la matrice de la longueur 

 d'environ deux pouces." "What the two sigmoid valves are I do not see, 

 as in his figure he indicates the two Malpighian canals as well. The 

 " rebord " probably corresponds to the tumid rounded eminence (fig. 8, 

 S'iprd) about one inch long, terminating above and behind in a little point, 



