540 
PROFESSOR W. TURNER ON THE PLACENTATION OF THE APES. 
polyhedral form. The free surface of these island-like areas was not quite smooth, but 
subdivided by minute furrows. The surface of the decidua was perforated by 
numerous apertures, much more distinctly seen in and near the furrows between the 
different islands than on the summit of the islands ; these openings were the mouths 
of the utricular glands. In the beautiful drawings of the human gravid uterus from 
the twentieth to the twenty-fifth day, published by M. Coste,* the division of the 
free surface of the decidua vera into islands is well displayed, as well as the orifices of 
the numerous utricular glands. In two human gravid uteri, at from the third to the 
fifth week, which I examined in June, 1876, similar appearances were seen. But I 
have also observed these characters in more advanced specimens. In a uterus at the 
fourth month the “ islands ” were very distinct, as well as the corrugated appearance 
of their surfaces. Numerous gland-mouths opened into and near the furrows between 
the islands. Along the fundus and sides of the uterine cavity the mouths of the 
glands were much more closely set in a given area than on the anterior and posterior 
surfaces, the orifices were transversely elongated, and the gland-tubes were short. In 
the specimen at the fifth month, already referred to (p. 539), the orifices of the glands 
were distinct, and also varied in number in different parts of the mucous surface ; 
the division of the surface into island-like areas was no longer recognisable. In the 
uterus at the seventh month the islands had disappeared, but rounded orifices leading 
into shallow tubular depressions were scattered in varying numbers over different 
parts of the surface of the mucosa. In the specimen at the ninth month, the free 
surface of the decidua showed neither islands nor furrows, but numerous shallow pits 
opened on its free surface. The obliteration of the island-like areas and the inter- 
mediate furrows in the later months of pregnancy in the human uterus is doubtless 
due to the great distention of the organ, and the same cause has also converted the 
ducts of the tubular glands into the shallow pits I have just referred to. 
In my Mcicacus cynomolgus at the stage of pregnancy at which the uterus was 
examined, no island-like areas or mouths of utricular glands were to be seen on the 
surface of the mucosa. 
Few observations have as yet been recorded on the glands in the non-gravid uteri 
of the Apes. In 1873 I described! these structures in the uterus of Ateles gricescens, 
and in my lectures on the ‘Comparative Anatomy of the Placenta’! I made some 
general observations on the utricular glands in some other genera of Apes, but did not 
give a detailed description of them, an omission which I now supply. 
I have specially examined the non-gravid uteri of Macacus vufescens, Semnopithecus 
entellus, and young specimens of a Hylobates agilis, and a Chimpanzee, in order to 
determine the characters of the mucous membrane in the unimpregnated uterus, and 
the mode of arrangement of the utricular glands. In all these specimens the mucous 
* ‘ Histoire chi Developpement des Corps Organises.’ 1847. 
f On the “ Placentation of the Sloths,” Trans. Roy. Soe. Edinburgh, vol. xxvii. 
J First series, p. 28. Edinburgh, 1876. 
