674 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 683. 



into bags, or bladders, where it remains some longer time, as in many other 

 animals. 



This I first noticed in polecats, viz. that just at the extremity of the rectum 

 are placed two bags, filled with a thick and whitish liquor, of a very strong and 

 offensive scent. The same I have observed in abundance of other animals ; as 

 in all the polecat-kind, in our common cats, in a lion, in dogs, in a fox, &c. 

 Those bags in the civet-cat, or hyaena odorifera, are nothing but the same. 

 As are likewise those of a musk-quash, mentioned by Josselin in his History of 

 the Rarities of New-England ; for they are not the testicles of that animal; for 

 having seen the skins here in town, and those musk cods, I find them to be 

 only the scent-bags. So the castoreum we have in the shops is not the stones 

 of a beaver, as formerly reputed, but altogether of the same nature with our 

 scent-bags. And in most species of animals there may be observed something 

 the same or analogous to it, which give them their peculiar foetors or smells. 

 Thus I have observed in reptiles, as the rattle-snake, in vipers, in the common 

 snake, &c. two long bags in the tail, which discharges their foetid liquor near 

 the verge of the rectum. But in all animals these bags or glands are not 

 seated here ; but in some, in different parts of the body. In fowls and birds 

 in the rumps are two glands, which have their pipes or excretory ducts arising 

 on the top of it, above the surface of the skin, which discharge a foetid liquor. 

 These glands are largest in geese and the duck kind, which use the water. In 

 Turkeys the rump is less glandulous, but they have a larger cystis within. 

 In the ostrich the gland lies higher on the back, where it makes two bunches ; 

 and under the skin is a cystis filled with a concreted yellowish juice, which 

 is near the place where the gland in the Mexican hog is seated. Again, the 

 musk deer has its musk-bag on the belly, near the navel. 



To give a short account of the skeleton; the cranium seemed entire, with- 

 out sutures. From the nose, to the end of the pole, 84- inches. Here the 

 cranium grew very narrow ; and then spread itself again triangularwise, and 

 made a large hollow behind ; and where were inserted strong muscles, and 

 the ligament from the back; by which means the head is kept so straight 

 up, that when alive, he seemed to have but a very short (if any) neck at all. 

 The porus auditorius, or passage to the ear, was something remarkable, being 

 placed near the pole. In the upper jaw in the front were four teeth, or in- 

 cisores. A little farther was placed a large flat tusk, sharp-edged, and standing 

 outwards ; and beyond that, on each side, 6 double teeth, or molares. The 

 lower jaw was 6^ inches long ; 14- broad at the first double tooth, of which 

 there were 6 on each side. The bone of the lower jaw here, from the dentes 



