206 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aKTNO 1685. 



I looked with a common microscope, I saw they were water bladders, one redder 

 than another, and containing some bloody matter, which consisted of small 

 glandulous parts, joined together with membranes, having many globules of 

 blood spread among them, by which one of them was become blood red. 



Afterwards I killed a rabbit which had been bucked 6 days before ; and when 

 I opened one of the cornua uteri, I saw therein a round water bladder about 

 the size of a barley corn, having a tender membrane, seeming to be composed 

 of globular parts, and showing through a common microscope like the grain 

 of shagrin ; this I imagined to have come from an animal of the male seed, 

 but when I opened it, and searched through all the contained watery matter, I 

 could make nothing of it, but that I thought I saw something having the form 

 of a rabbit, but 1000 times less than a sand. Yet I cannot be positive, since 

 in the other horn of the womb, I found 2 such round bladders which had not 

 the same appearances. When the watery matter began to evaporate, I saw a 

 great number of 6-sided figures, whose sides rose up pyramidally, like those 

 described in my last letter, N° 3, fig. 4, being clear as a polished diamond: 

 about them lay beautiful brown globules. There were also some salts having a 

 square basis, and others an oblong, but their number was few and scarcely worth 

 noticing. I examined the ovarium, and found in it 2 or 3 water bladders 

 which lay deep, and were half hid, and one that was reddish, the rest that 

 stuck out more, being the greater number, were of an ash-colour, and con- 

 sisted of glandulous parts. I looked also how the eggs might have a passage 

 to come down, but could find none. 



I received from a butcher the uterus of a sheep, which was said to have taken 

 the ram 3 days before. As I opened each of the cornua, the moisture ran 

 plentifully out, which I put separately in 2 dishes, searching with my common 

 microscope, till I found a small body of about the size of a coarse sand. At 

 first I could perceive no figure it had ; but when I applied it to a good micros- 

 cope, it proved to be a young lamb, with the head and back bent forward, but 

 in very good order; the jaw-bone and eyes were very distinct, but the back 

 bone much less. 



From all the preceding observations I am more and more confirmed, that the 

 supposed ovariums are only instruments for the disburthening the parts there- 

 about ; for if they were true ovariums, the eggs would first be little when the 

 animals are young, and become gradually larger against the time that the ani- 

 mals come to procreate, as it is in birds that lay eggs. That I might satisfy 

 myself and others herein, I examined calves of 3, 4, 5, and 6 weeks old, and 

 found the eggs as large as if they had been of a full grown cow, being like peas. 

 I also found that the eggs in a sucking lamb were larger than in a full grown 



