202 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1685. 



unprofitable ground ; for the animals had swam forward in the uterus 5 inches 

 and 4-, which is the distance from GHIK to L. 



I opened likewise the whole length of the uterus, as PQ, seeking for the 

 bodies which they say are sucked from the ovarium in generation ; but I found 

 none. For if it be granted, that the largest eggs are the ripest, as in all ani- 

 mals that are oviparous, I should not have had much trouble to discover them, 

 if they had continued so great round bodies as those in the ovarium LMNO, 

 or such bodies as are represented in the ovarium QRS. 



The uterus of a bitch is, from IK to L, almost of an equal thickness ; but at ' 

 L it becomes immediately very small, contrary to the uterus of a sheep ; and 

 how is it to be comprehended, that such large round bodies as the eggs can pass 

 through so narrow and wrinkled a passage, and not only one of them, but 

 several together ; as in a bitch, which being but once lined, brings several 

 puppies. That I might satisfy myself herein, I separated the thinnest part of the 

 tuba from the testicle, and bound a thread about the tuba where it grows thick; 

 partly that in the mouth that sucks down the supposed eggs, (where I have put 

 a great pin to show the cavity) I might pour quicksilver, for discovering how 

 much the thin stiff tuba would stretch itself; and partly that I might know 

 whether the round membrane which contains it, and reaches from L to O, as 

 ON, had a hollowness. 



In fig. 7, VWX is the thin end of the tuba. T is the thread bound about 

 the thick part of the uterus. X is the opening where the quicksilver is put in. 

 The tuba did not stretch itself any wider than is here represented, nor did it 

 lose that crinkled form, which it had while it was in the ovarium, as represented 

 at W. The uterus at TV stretched itself very much, by the quicksilver, and 

 from thence I am convinced that it has no other passage than at X ; for if it 

 had, the quicksilver would have run out of it. 



Hence will appear the impossibility that the great glandulous bodies in 

 LMNO and QRS, in fig. 6, should go through the small passage XWV in 

 %• 7 J till they come to the widening of the uterus; and I must confess I could 

 not find any round particle in it, that was larger than a red-making globule of 

 the blood. 



I procured another bitch, which had been proud 3 days, in which time they 

 said she had been lined thrice, and when she had been lined a 4th time in my 

 presence, I opened the uterus in the same manner as I had done the other. But 

 though I found a great quantity of the semen masculum, I could not find any 

 body larger than a blood globule. Neither was there in the vagina uteri any 

 thing except what I have formerly mentioned. 



I understand that De Graaf, when he anatomised female rabbits, used to 



