OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 57 



148. In reviewing the principal zoological classes, it is easy to 

 perceive that the external sexual parts, mere organs of coition, as 

 in the human species, are far from exhibiting the same characters, 

 and the same completeness in all cases. 



In fishes, reptiles and birds, the cloaca supplies their place, except 

 in some species that have a clitoris; in the mammiferae, the horizon- 

 tal posture renders a mons Veneris useless, and accordingly, not a 

 trace of it is to be found. 



According to M. Cuvier, neither do the nymphae exist in any 

 family; however I have reason to think I observed it in the giraffe 

 which is now in the Jardin du Roi. 



149. The vulva and greater labia are met with in all classes, but 

 with very various forms. The interior is almost always wrinkled, 

 as in the cow, the tiger, &c. Placed lengthwise in the majority of 

 animals, it is in some cases transverse as in the hyena, or circular 

 as in the rabbit and in most of the rodentia; very shallow as in 

 women; it forms in the guinea pig a canal as long as, or even longer 

 than the vagina of the bear and some species of the monkey; all of 

 them have a clitoris, which in some is very small, and very large in 

 others, the monkey for example, where it is connected as to size with 

 an excessively lascivious disposition. The hymen, attributed by most 

 authors to woman alone, is certainly to be found in a great number 

 of animals. Is the plait or circle that separates the vagina from 

 the vulva in the she goat, the ewe, and the bitch any thing else? 

 M. Cuvier has noticed it in the hyena and the daman. It is im- 

 possible to mistake it in the semi-lunar membrane which contracts 

 the vagina of the virgin mare and she ass, or in that which was no- 

 ticed by Steller in the lamantin of the north: I think the giraffe has 

 it also. The greater labia, the clitoris, and the hymen are there- 

 fore the most constantly met with of all the external organs of 

 generation; and in all the species, these parts of coition are, there- 

 fore, rather destined to augment the pleasure of the venereal con- 

 gress than to play any fundamental part in the great act of repro- 

 duction. 



§. XI. Anomaly of the external Organs of Ge- 

 neration. 



150. I have already spoken of the preternatural development 

 of the clitoris and nymphae, as well as the extreme length of these 

 parts among certain nations; I have now to remark, that the greater 

 labia have been in some instances found wholly wanting, in conse- 

 quence of malformation of the individual; sometimes they adhere 

 to each other, either at one spot or throughout their whole extent, 



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