1418 



VESICULA PROSTATICA. 



corresponding vas deferens. Its cavity is 

 that of a canal, but not so wide a one as 

 might he guessed from the exterior thickness 

 of the bod)' ; and it opens by a distinct aper- 

 ture on the vernrnontanum. 



Pinnipedia. The genitals of a young male 

 seal, probably Phoca vitidina, were examined 

 by me. Here I saw a scarcely visible linear 

 fold, which led to a longish Weberian organ 

 of about two lines in si/e. The fold lay close 

 behind a small ridge-shaped verumontanum, 

 on which were the orifices of the vasa defe- 

 rentia, situated close to each other. As in 

 the dog, the organ is situated partly in front 

 of, partly beneath, a prostate, which in form 

 and development also corresponds with that 

 gland in the dog. 



Marsupialia. In DldelpJiys Virginiana the 

 only animal of this order whose male genitals 

 I had, no trace >f the Weberian corpuscle 

 was present. 



Rodentia. The Weberian organ showed 



and Uypudceus aniphibius, I have 

 looked for it in vain. But certain'y the My- 

 oxus Vitela, Dipus JEgyptiacus and Cricetus 

 vulgaris exhibited a single small longitudinally- 

 folded verumontanum, which, from its situa- 

 tion between the two orifices of the vasa de- 

 ferentia, must have been the opening of a 

 Weberian organ : but tin's structure iself, on 

 account of its sheer minuteness and hidden 

 situation, eluded the further searches, which 

 were made in only a few individuals. 



In Cavia cobaya the Weberian organ is, as 

 I described it some time since*, a small 

 roundish vesicle, scarcely a line in size, which 

 has a bilobed extremity, and, as in Macro- 

 scelides, a constricted neck, which opens into 

 the iiro-genital canal between the two seminal 

 ducts. The Weberian organ of the rabbit 

 and hare is very much larger. It was formerly 

 known to the older zootomists under the name 

 of the azygous seminal vesiclef, and has only 

 received a more accurate description and ex- 



Fis. 877. 



Welerian Organ of the Beaver (after Weber.} J 

 , rt, Vasa deferentia ; i, b, Weberian organ ; c, c, prostate ; d, d, seminal vesicles. 



great variations in occurrence, size, and shape. 

 In Sciurns vu/garis, Tamias sirinta *, Spcrmo- 

 philus atilluSy in Mus muscidus and dccu- 



* The Cowper's glands of this animal are cylin- 

 drical structures of very considerable size (almost 

 half an inch long) : they have knot-shaped thicken- 

 ings at their end, and are rolled up in a coil around 

 this extremity. The prostate consists of two large 

 gland lobes which have the form of a hammer. 



planation through the researches of Htischke 

 and Weber. 



In the rabbit this organ attains a length of 

 from one to one and a half inches, so that it 



* Zur Anatomic, &c. p. 104. 



t See fig. 281. Art. RODENTIA, Vol. IV. p. SD3. 

 (Rymer Jones.) 



This engraving is copied from the " Zusatze,' 

 &c. 



