278 



Prof. Sir Wm. Turner. 



[June 7, 



not extend into the diverticulum of the chorion. The specimens 

 were at different stages of gestation, but none was at the full time, 

 though the foetus of Propitliecus was well developed, and measured, 

 without including the tail, 5 inches in length. 



In April of the present year I received from F. E. Beddard, Esq., 

 Prosector to the Zoological Society of London, the gravid uterus of a 

 Lemur, which he informs me was Lemur xanthomystax. The animal 

 had died during labour. On examining the specimen the uterus 

 showed no signs of inflammation, but its posterior wall was ruptured 

 immediately above the line of reflection of the peritoneum from the 

 rectum on to it. The caudal end of the foetus occupied the upper 

 third of the vagina, the membranes having been torn so as to allow 

 the passage of the hinder part of the trunk out of the uterus. The 

 uterine vessels were then filled with a carmine and gelatine injection, 

 and the vessels of the chorion were partially filled with a blue injec- 

 tion through the umbilical trunks. 



The uterus was somewhat smaller than that of Propithecus diadema, 

 described in the memoir above referred to. As in that specimen it 

 seemed on external examination as if it were a single uterus, but 

 when opened into it was seen to possess a largely dilated left cornu, 

 containing the head of the foetus, and a short right cornu, dilated to 

 about the size of a walnut, both of which freely communicated with 

 the cavity of the corpus uteri ; a depending fold of mucous membrane 

 not half an inch deep separated the cornua from each other. The 

 vagina was about 60 mm. long, and with a smooth mucous membrane. 

 The os uteri was defined by a circular fold of mucous membrane. 

 Each ovary was only about half the size of a common pea, and the left 

 one contained a highly vascular corpus luteum. 



The folds and sulci of the mucous membrane both of the corpus 

 and cornua uteri with their numerous crypts,- corresponded generally 

 with those previously described and figured by me in P. diadema. 

 The largest area of smooth mucous membrane was immediately above 

 the os uteri ; that next in size was situated around the orifice of the 

 left Fallopian tube, whilst a smaller one surrounded the opening of 

 the right tuba. Smooth areas were interspersed amidst the mucous 

 folds ; they were much less vascular than the folds and crypts, but as, 

 both in their appearance to the naked eye and their relation to the 

 openings of the uterine glands, they corresponded closely to what I 

 have previously described in P. diadema and Lemur rufipes, I need not 

 further describe them. The epithelial contents gave to the uterine 

 glands a yellowish colour ; but it was difficult to individualise in them 

 the separate cells, the contents of which were granular, and the out- 

 lines indistinct. It seemed indeed as if the cells were in process of 

 degeneration, owing to the period of gestation having come to an end, 

 and as parturition had begun, the glands were no longer required to 



