GENERATION AND DEVELOPMENT. 235 



dependency of internal connection with the parent; and, lastly, of a canal, 

 or Vagina, with its appendages, for the reception of the male generative 

 organs in the act of copulation, and for the subsequent discharge of the 

 foetus. 



Ovaries. The ovaries are two oval compressed bodies, situated in 

 the cavity of the pelvis, one on each side, enclosed in the folds of the 

 broad ligament. Each ovary measures about an inch and a half in length, 

 three-quarters of an inch in width, and nearly half an inch in thickness, 



FIG. 393. View of a section of the prepared ovary of the cat. 1, outer covering and free border 

 of the ovary: 1', attached border; 2, the ovarian stroma, presenting a fibrous and vascular struc- 

 ture; 3, granular substance lying external to the fibrous stroma; 4, blood-vessels; 5, ovigerms in 

 their earliest stages occupying a part of the granular layer near the surface; 6, ovigerms which have 

 begun to enlarge and to pass more deeply into the ovary; 7, ovigerms round which the Graafian 

 follicle and tunica granulosa are now formed, and which have passed somewhat deeper into the 

 ovary and are surrounded by the fibrous stroma ; 8, more advanced Graafian follicle with the ovum 

 imbedded in the layer of cells constituting the proligerous disc; 9, the most advanced follicle con- 

 taining the ovum, etc. ; 9', a follicle from which the ovum has accidentally escaped ; 10, corpus luteum. 

 6-1. (Schron.) 



and is attached to the uterus by a narrow fibrous cord (the ligament of 

 the ovary), and, more slightly, to the Fallopian tubes by one of the fim- 

 briae into which the walls of the extremity of the tube expand. 



Structure. The ovary is developed by a capsule of dense fibre-cellu- 

 lar tissue, covered on the outside by epithelium (germ-epithelium), the 

 cells of which, although continuous with, and originally derived from, 

 the squamous epithelium of the peritoneum, are short columnar. 



The term germ-epithelium is used on account of the relation which it 

 bears in early life to the development of the ova; the ova being formed 

 by certain of these epithelial cells, which, becoming modified in structure, 

 are gradually enclosed in the ovarian stroma. ( Waldeyer. ) (See Fig. 394. ) 



The internal structure of the organ consists of a peculiar soft fibrous 

 tissue, or stroma, abundantly supplied with blood-vessels, and having 

 embedded in it, in various stages of development, numerous minute fol- 

 licles or vesicles, the Graafian vesicles, or sacculi, containing the ova 

 (Fig. 394). 



