152 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1726. 



round, and the bust and reverse scarcely perceptible in some pieces, and quite 

 obliterated in others. The aerugo and sulci in many of the pieces would make 

 one believe, that besides the attrition, there may be a menstruum in their giz- 

 zards not unfit to dissolve metals. Within an inch of the end of the rectum 

 was the cloaca, or expansion of that great gut, which was thinner than the 

 other part of the gut, in proportion to its expansion, and would hold above 

 half a pint. The end of the rectum, from the cloaca, opened into a cavity 

 large enough to hold my two fists; and for want of another name, it may be 

 called the receptaculum penis, because the penis was always lodged in it when 

 flaccid. That part is called by Dr. Brown, a kind of praepuce; but upon dis- 

 section, it appeared plain enough to be a very strong muscle composed of cir- 

 cular fibres, and to be designed for a sphincter of that part in which the penis 

 was to be lodged, and to be a sphincter of the rectum too; round which the 

 same muscle was traced above an inch; and this being but one muscle, must 

 be the reason that the penis always came out some inches when it muted, as 

 reported. The penis, flaccid as it is, is 5-1- inches long from the skin of that 

 receptaculum, and, as Dr. Harvey says, not unlike a hart's tongue. Mr. W, 

 did not find a cartilage in it, as Dr. Brown suggests ; but at its origination it is 

 so hard a body, that he believed if the bird had lived some years, it might have 

 become cartilaginous. There are two bodies that are joined to the crura penis, 

 which perhaps may be the vesiculse seminales, and the rather, as there are two 

 vessels enter them, which seem to be the vasa deferentia; but of this Mr. W. 

 was not certain; for though he found semen in the urethra, he was not able to 

 trace a passage from these supposed vesiculae seminales, or those vessels, or any 

 other part into the urethra. He calls it urethra, because there is no other term 

 for it, though the urine does not pass that way ; but, as in other birds, is mixed 

 with the grosser excrements in the cloaca. The urethra then, is only a sulcus, 

 or gutta, from one end of the penis to the other ; which sulcus, as the penis 

 lies flaccid in the receptaculum, lies on one side; but on erection, the penis 

 turns towards the belly, and the sulcus is then at the top, and lies conveniently 

 enough for conveyance of the semen. If those two bodies are not the vesi- 

 culae seminales, they must be elongations of the crura penis; but they seem of 

 much too loose a contexture to serve that purpose. Whether the vena cava, 

 dividing into two branches to go into the kidneys, and uniting again when it 

 comes out, is singular to this bird, or is in common with geese and other water- 

 fowl, is not known; but so it was in the ostrich. The caecums of the ostrich, 

 which are so much taken notice of, are no more than what it has in common 

 with other fowls; and that a chicken has two, as large, and as long in propor- 

 tion as the ostrich. 



