An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.Collins, David
History
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.
Collins, David
New South Wales -- Description and travel
The male organs do not appear externally; so that the distinguishing mark
of the sex is the spur on the hind leg.
The testicles are situated in the cavity of the abdomen, immediately
below the kidneys: they are large for the size of the animal. The
epididymis is connected with the body of the testicle by a broad
membrane, which admits of its lying very loose.
The penis in this animal does not, as in other quadrupeds, give passage
to the urine. It is entirely appropriated to the purpose of conveying the
semen; and a distinct canal conducts the urine into the rectum, by an
opening about an inch from the external orifice of the intestine. The gut
at this part is defended from the acrimony of the urine, by the mucus
secreted by two glands, which, probably for this reason, are very large
in the male, but small in the female.
The penis is short and small in its relaxed state; and its body does not
appear capable of being very much enlarged when erected. The prepuce is a
fold of the internal membrane of the verge of the anus, as in the bird;
and the penis, when retracted, is entirely concealed.
The glans penis is double; one glans having its extremity directed to the
right, the other to the left: and as they supply two distinct cavities
with semen, they may be considered as two penises. This is an approach to
the bird kind, many species of which have two. There was no appearance of
vesiculae feminales.
The female organs open into the rectum, as in the bird. The vagina is 1½
inches long: its internal membrane is rugous, the rugae being in a
longitudinal direction. At the end of the vagina, instead of an os
tincae, as in other quadrupeds, is the meatus urinarius; on each side of
which is an opening leading into a cavity, resembling the horn of the
uterus in the quadruped, only thinner in its coats. Each of these
cavities terminates in a fallopian tube, which opens into the capsule of
an ovarium. The ovaria are very small; they were not in a very perfect
state of preservation, but bore a general resemblance to those of other
quadrupeds.
This structure of the female organs is unlike any thing hitherto met with
in quadrupeds; since in all of them that I examined, says Mr. Home, there
is the body of the uterus, from which the horns go off as appendages. The
opossum differs from all other animals in the structure of these parts,
but has a perfectly formed uterus; nor can I suppose it wanting in any of
the class Mammalia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass. — John Shaqi
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