PROFESSOR W. TURNER ON THE PL AGENT ATION OF THE APES. 
541 
membrane formed a definite layer lining the uterine cavity. By its deep surface it 
was closely united to the subjacent muscular tissue. Its free surface was covered by 
a single layer of columnar epithelial cells ; these cells were much shorter than the 
columnar cells covering the surface of the intestinal or respiratory mucous mem- 
brane ; their nuclei were relatively large, and the cells themselves were not unlike in 
appearance the germ-epithelium corpuscles one sees on the surface of a young ovary. 
I am unable to say if the cells were ciliated at their free ends, as the uteri had been 
preserved in spirit for some time before they came into my possession ;* but there can 
be little doubt that in the Apes, as in the uteri of other mammals, the cellular 
covering of the mucosa is a ciliated epithelium. 
The sub-epithelial connective tissue of the mucosa was vascular, and contained a 
great abundance of corpuscles. Although the corpuscles were diffused throughout 
the whole thickness of the tissue, yet they were in some places relatively more 
numerous than in others. In Macacus, for example, they were more closely crowded 
immediately subjacent to the epithelium than in the deeper parts of the mucosa, 
and, in many of the sections through the mucosa of this and the other specimens, 
rows of corpuscles lay almost vertical to the free surface, as if following the course of 
the larger blood vessels. In the Macacus, Hylobates, and Chimpanzee, the mucous 
membrane was thrown into broad folds separated by shallow furrows, but in Sem- 
nopithecus the free surface of the mucosa was almost plane. 
The glands were not uniform either in arrangement or relative numbers in these 
genera of Apes. In the young Chimpanzee they seemed to be absent in the substance 
of the broad folds of the mucosa, but to be situated at the sides and bottom of the 
furrows which separated these folds from each other. In these localities vertical 
sections through the mucous membrane exhibited transverse and oblique sections 
through tubular glands, but it was only seldom that the gland tube could be followed 
to its opening on the surface. As the divided gland tubes were always seen to be 
collected together in clusters, it is probable that the tube was tortuous and perhaps 
branched, so that a vertical section passed through various parts of its length. The 
deeper parts of the glands lay in close proximity to the muscular coat and distinct 
fasciculi, apparently continuous with the muscular bundles, passed between them. 
In the young Hylobates the glands were more numerous, and more equally distributed 
throughout the mucosa than in the Chimpanzee. In vertical sections through the 
membrane they were often divided both obliquely and transversely, so that their 
course was oblique to the surface and probably tortuous, and it was only seldom that 
the opening of a gland), on the surface could be seen. In Macacus rufescens tubular- 
glands were arranged as in the Chimpanzee in the neighbourhood of the furrows 
which separated the longitudinal folds of the mucosa from each other. A tubular- 
appearance was also seen in the folds themselves ; but from the absence of an 
These uteri were obtained from animals that had died in the Zoological Gardens, and were kindly 
given to me by Professor A. H. Garrod. 
