THE ANATOMY OF THE INDIAN ELEPHANT. 63 



separate compartment, lined with peritoneum, in whose wall 

 the fimbriated pouch may be said to be excavated. A valve or 

 membranous fold separates the two cavities. On the side of 

 this valve, remote from that part of the pouch which ordinarily 

 lodges the ovary, the Fallopian tube may be seen, expanding to 

 its orifice. In the opposite direction it rapidly contracts to a 

 long, narrow, and tortuous canal, which suddenly expands 

 again to an outside diameter of about half an inch. From 

 this point each of the cornua uteri converges towards its fellow, 

 running parallel therewith for the last 3 inches of its course, 

 and opening finally into the common uterus. The total length 

 of each is about 14 inches. A number of uterine glands are 

 visible towards the lower end of the cornua. 



Utekus. 



The cornua unite to form a short tube of about an inch in 

 length and three quarters of an inch in diameter. This leads 

 into a somewhat larger chamber about three inches long, 

 which represents the cervix uteri. The wall of the uterus 

 is provided with circular muscular fibres. Outwardly the 

 uterus is with difficulty distinguished from the vagina, 

 but on opening the tube loose longitudinal folds of the 

 mucous surface are found to converge towards two well-marked 

 (anterior and posterior) internal protuberances, which nearly 

 close the passage from one to the other, forming thus a kind of 

 OS uteri. 



Dr Watson finds no constriction corresponding to an os 

 uteri in the female of Hymna crocuta, and goes on to say : — 

 '•' The same remark holds good, so far as I can ascertain, of only 

 one other placental mammal — that is, of the Indian elephant, 

 in the female of which, as Mayer pointed out, the vagina is 

 altogether absent, and the uterus opens directly into the urino- 

 genital canal." i Mayer does not actually use this language, for 

 he regards the uro-genital canal as vagina (" die mit der Urethra 

 vereinte Vagina "), but the facts as described by him admit of 

 Dr Watson's interpretation. Whether the uterus is really 

 perfectly continuous with the vagina is another question, and 

 here we must remark that we find much discrepancy between 



1 Proc. Zool Soc. 1878, p. 424. 



