FEMALE ORGANS OF BRUTA, 



689 



543 



uterus. This commences by a bifid expansion, and is continued 

 without constriction or distinction into a wide vagina with 

 interlocking transverse folds at its uterine half. In Tupaia 

 the clitoris is long but is merely grooved, the groove being 

 continued to the urethral opening just within the vulva. The 

 uterine cornua are short. In the 

 Hedgehog the clitoris projects from 

 a prepuce into a urogenital pas- 

 sage of an inch in length, mid- 

 way between the vulva and the 

 urethra : here a slight constriction 

 marks the boundary of the proper 

 vagina. This canal soon becomes 

 rugous ; the rugae are nearly trans- 

 verse, increasing in breadth, and in- 

 terlocking near the os tincae, which 

 seems to terminate the series. The 

 body of the uterus is about half an 

 inch in length ; the cornua not 

 much more. The ovary is tuber- 

 culate and furrowed ; its perito- 

 neal capsule is large, with a small 

 orifice near the termination of the 

 oviduct in the uterus. The ovaria 

 are large and clustered, and the 

 uterine cornua long, in the multi- 

 parous Tenrec (Centetes); 1 the va- 

 gina has the transverse alternating 

 folds at the uterine half of the canal. 



In the Bats the uterus has two very short horns : the long 

 corpus uteri opens by an os tincae into the vagina : in Pteropus 

 the vagina extends into a cul-de sac beyond the os tincae. 



§ 386. In Bruta. — The absence of the valvular or mechanical 

 limit between uterus and vagina, noticed in certain Insectivora, is 

 an inferior character repeated in the present order of Lissen- 

 cephala. In the Armadillos (Dasypus Peba, e.g.) the uterine 

 walls gradually become thinner, the epithelium denser and 

 smoother, and longitudinal furrows finally denote the vagina, 



1 Of the two specimens of Centetes setosus transmitted to me by the Hon. "W. R. 

 Rawson, Treasurer of the Mauritius, one had brought forth twenty young : he had 

 known an instance of twenty-two at a birth, the more usual number being twelve to 

 eighteen. I added dissections of the foetus to the Hunterian Series under the 

 No. 3577, a, to show the close analogy in form and structure of the male and female 

 organs at that period. 



VOL. III. Y Y 



Female organs, Rhynchocyon. cxxxiv', 



