1909. | ; POSTCAVAL VEIN IN MAMMALS. 5O5 
were symmetrical and had no secondary connections with the 
posteaval*, The intercostals were very slender as in Macropus 
parryy and apparently paired at their entrance into the postcaval. 
Into the left common iliac opened a medianly situate caudal 
vein. The ovarian arteries, contrary to what I have recorded in 
Trichosurus fuliginosus, emerged along with the ovarian veins. 
On the left side I counted two intercostal veins between the 
renal and the posterior ovarian, 
Dasyurus manger (see text-fig. 133 A, p. 502) shows some slight 
variations in the postcaval branches, which do not, however, in 
any way detract from the quite typically Marsupial arrangement 
of the veins in that animal, I have examined most of these 
veins in five examples. ‘The renal veins in all were symmetrical, 
the right being considerably in advance of the left. The posterior 
spermatic veins were also very nearly if not absolutely symmetrical, 
The usual two veins on each side entered the renals; but in one 
specimen at any rate the outermost of these veins seemed to enter 
the kidney itself, there being thus a kind of suggestion of a renal 
portal system. IJ have noticed this same connection with vessels 
actually within the kidney in other animals, and it may possibly 
be the persistence of an embryonic condition. The importance of 
these anterior spermatic veins appears to vary in individuals, and 
I think that they do not always anastomose with the posterior 
spermatics. The left suprarenal sometimes opens into the left 
renal and sometimes into the postcaval vein direct. 
Among the Edentata I have chiefly examined the Dasypodide. 
It is already clear from the investigations of Hochstetter that 
the genus Dasypus is characterised by a postrenally divided post- 
cava. ‘l'wo species figured and described by Hochstetter + (whose 
figures are copied by McClure {), viz. D. setosus and D. novem- 
cinctus, differ, however, in certain details. In Dasypus setosus 
the postcava is double at an earlier position than in the other 
species of Dasypus. Immediately after the embouchure of the 
two renal veins the postcava is divided in D, setosus. The division 
occurs lower down in WD. novemcinctus. Moreover, in the 
former species another character of this genus is shown in a more 
marked fashion, 7. ¢. the caudal vein forms a more complex rete 
of vessels. Finally, while in D. setosus only the left renal vein is 
double, both are double in D. novemcinctus. These peculiarities 
may of course be individual. In the generalities of the dis- 
position of the veins concerned I can assert that Dasypus vellerosus 
resembles its congeners. There are, however, differences of detail 
which are worth noting, though some of them may of course be 
individual. 
* It seems probable that the secondary connections described above in Macropus 
parryi are explicable on the same grounds as those urged in explaining the asym- 
metry in Vrichosurus fuliginosus. The “connections” are probably to be looked 
upon as intercostal veins, and one of them (see text-fig. 134 A) has a branch to the 
parietes. 
+ Morph. Jahrb. ¢. ¢. 
ft Anat. Anz. xxix. 1906, p. 376, fig. 3, p. 377, fig. 4, 
Proc. Zoou. Soc,—1909, No, XX XIII, 33 
