976 MESSRS. LISTER AND FLETCHER ON THE [UcC. 13, 



skeleton is now carefully set up in the small museum in that city. 

 It is 48 feet long ; and part of the whalebone remains in the jaw. 

 There are also bones of a whale found in the sands at Deva, in the 

 same museum. T was given part of a whale's rib dug up on the 

 Lecjueitio beach; and a jawbone, which was long in the courtyard 

 of the palace of the Marques de San Estevan at Gijon, is now pre- 

 served in the Jovellanos Institute of the same town. Of course 

 there must be any number of bones buried in the sand of the beaches 

 where so many hundreds of whales have been flensed in former 

 centuries. 



In 1878 the accomplished historian of Guipuzcoa, Don Nicolas 

 Soraluce, printed a pamphlet at Vitoria on " tlie origin and history 

 of the whale and cod fisheries," which contains much interesting 

 information. I may add that Seiior Soraluce is preparing some 

 additional chapters on the whale-fishery, and that he expects to 

 obtain copies of interesting documents relating to the same subject 

 from the archives of the Ministry of Marine at Madrid. 



2. Ou the Condition of the Median Portion of the Vaginal 

 Apparatus in the Macropodidse. By J. J. Lister^ B.A., 

 F.Z.S., St. John^s College, Cambridge,, Demonstrator 

 of Comparative Anatomy in the University of Cam- 

 bridge, and J. J. Fletcher, M.A. (Syd.), B.Sc. (Lond.). 



[Eeceived November 8, 18S1.] 



In the Marsupialia, as is now well known, the female reproductive 

 organs consist of two ovaries, two oviducts, two uteri, two vaginte, 

 a urogenital sinus, and a clitoris. The vaginte are variously compli- 

 cated in the various families comprising the order ; but in the Kan- 

 garoos the vaginal apparatus may be described in general terms as 

 consisting of a median pprtion (formed by the union and more or 

 less complete coalescence of the portions of the Mlillerian ducts 

 which succeed the uteri), and of the two lateral portions (which 

 curve outward and backward somewhat like the handles of a vase, 

 and open distally, but without making any projection, into the uro- 

 genital chamber). They are what are usually known as the two 

 vaginse. The median portion is usually described as approaching 

 the urogenital chamber more or less closely, but as ending blindly, 

 thus forming a cul-de-sac, and as being connected with it simply by 

 connective tissue. 



A considerable number of observers have met with the median 

 vaginal portion in a condition very different from that just described, 

 inasmuch as its tissue was found to be continuous with that of the 

 urogenital passage, and, what is still more interesting, the two 

 chambers communicated with one another by au aperture situated 

 immediately above that of the meatus urinarius. 



