210 ZOOLOGICAL GLEANINGS 



From these pious but deluded people I got many 

 good things that they meant to leave to the crabs, and 

 kites, and jackals. Among them was a large female 

 sting-ray, over 91 feet long, of the species Trygon 

 bleekeri, and, lying unborn in her oviduct, I found a 

 young one, 3 feet in length. The mucous membrane 

 of the oviduct was shaggy, with vascular filaments 

 dripping with milk, and on microscopic examination I 

 found that each filament was provided with superficial 

 muscles, whose contraction must serve to squeeze the 

 milk out. Some such mechanism is undoubtedly 

 necessary, seeing that the young one has no power of 

 extracting the secretion for itself. On examination of 

 the young one, the mother's milk was found inside the 

 modified first pair of gill-clefts or spiracles (the other 

 gill-clefts being tightly closed), and also in large clots 

 within the spiral valve of the intestine, so that there 

 can be no doubt that in these viviparous rays the un- 

 born young one may be said to "drink its mother's 

 milk " like a mammal, even though the milk-like secre- 

 tion does not go in at the mouth, but by channels 

 homologous with the ear - drum of air - breathing 

 vertebrates. 



I also got several female specimens of the small 

 sting - ray (Trygon walgd), in three of which there 

 were young ones and milk, the milk-filaments being 

 impacted in the spiracles of the young one, as in 

 Pteroplatcea micrura. All these specimens were found 



