﻿gg pR^ J. MURIE ON THE THREE-BANDED ARMADILLO. 



filled the deep lumbar cavity, that at first sight I was inclined to regard it as a great 

 tumour, which further examination and its structure quickly dispelled. It was 1-35 inch 

 long and ll inch thick. The dimensions of the right renal organ were somewhat under 

 this and it reached a trifle further backwards, the area in advance being partially occu- 

 pied by the middle, right, and caudate lobes of the liver. The capsule of the kidney is 

 strong, and in this case was very firmly bound to the lumbar pcritonseum, and with little 

 or no fatty envelope. In a transverse section displaying the sinus &c., the infundibula 



are seen to be few but deep. 

 Alessandrini affirms he found traces of lobulation in the kidneys of foetal Armadilloes, 



+ 



instancino- D. novemcinctus^ {Tatusia peha ?). In the numerous examples of the group 



examined by myself, adolescent or adult, the surface has been smooth and without indi- 

 cation of lobular sulci. In aU, the shape and position is similar to the above, any differ- 

 ence rather depending on the configuration of the bones and fleshy bed than in the glands 



themselves. 

 Each suprarenal body caps the rotund kidney, and thence Hes close and firmly against 



the side of the spine. Its figure is trihedi*al, J an inch in diameter and flattish. 



Genitalia. — In the Armadilloes the male intromittent organ is long, but in Tolypeutes 



inordinately so. In the flaccid condition it is more than one-third the entire length of 

 the animal {vide table of measurements, antea p. 74) ; consequently, when erect, it must 

 exceed this. Such great antediluvian Loricate forms as the Glyptodons {Soplo;phorus, 

 Tanochthm, &c.) must needs, therefore, have been provided with amazing genitalia. Did 

 the same proportion obtain, say, in Cetacea, which also have a conical penis ; then in the 

 larger species this organ would attain a magnitude of between 20 and 30 feet— a thing 

 monstrous and absurd. Owen^ suggests of the penis of the Armadillo, that it "has a 

 disproportionate length in relation to the mechanical obstacles to coition presented by 

 the body-armour." 



Tolyj)cnte8y in the construction of its generative parts, accords with the living genera 

 Dasijjms and Tatusia. There are a pair of Cowperian glands, in shape and size hke 

 small flattened French beans ; and their ducts open in the floor at the fore part of the 

 bulbous portion of the urethra. The prostate gland has a long diameter of about f of 

 an inch, with breadth and thickness in proportion. Its figure is somewhat quadran- 

 gular, but in this case mth the left upper border defective and eccentric. The con- 

 tracted small urinary bladder was more pyriform than in the dilated oval figure of that 

 otDasi/pus men by Professor Alessandrini ^ I did not observe that medio-anterior 

 termmation of the urachus alluded to by Owen in i). Q-cinctus \ The urethral bulb is 

 moderately full and roundish, the crura immensely strong for such a small animal. The 

 pair of long retractores of the penis, the bulbo- and the ischio-cavernosus muscles, are 

 ^^ell developed. Posteriorly the corpus spongiosum is of large calibre, and diminishes by 

 acgrccs lorwurds, terminating thmly at the orifice of the urethra. The testes, of con- 

 'HQerablc size, as m the other Armadilloes, are lodged within the abdomen ; and there is 



Antt. of Yelbratos ^o\\^' %!« ^' ^^' ^'^ '^'''' *^' ''^'^ "^^^°« «^ Chlamydo^horus to be non-lobiilate 



, Yoi, m. p. 0o8. , jr. ,. tab. xiii. fig. 8. ■ VP. Z. S. 1831, p. 1^7. 



\ 



