The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)
Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Animals; Mammals
The oviducal apparatus of the mammal is more specialised than that of lower
vertebrates. It is most simple, as might be imagined, in the egg-laying
Monotremes, where, indeed, it is on the same level as that of reptiles. But
in the Eutheria the fimbriated mouth of the oviduct passes into a narrow
and winding tube, the Fallopian tube; this widens into a uterus, and the
two uteri combine into a single tube in the higher forms. They are called
the Monodelphia on this account. In the Marsupials the uteri are distinct
though they often join above, and from this junction depends a median
"uterus." After the uterus or the uteri follows in every case a single
vagina.
The testes of the Mammalia, like those of other vertebrates, occupy
primitively a position within the body cavity precisely corresponding to
that of the ovaries. And in the lowly-organised Monotremata, and some other
forms, such as the Whales, they retain that primitive position within the
body. It is, however, distinctive of the Mammalia as opposed to lower
vertebrates that the testes descend later into a scrotum, which is simply a
protrusion of the skin of the body surrounded by muscles, and, of course,
containing a section of the body cavity in which lie the testes. The penis
of the Mammalia, represented by the clitoris and associated structures in
the female, is of a structure entirely peculiar to this group.
[Illustration]
FIG. 49.--Brain of Dog. A, ventral; B, dorsal; C, lateral aspect. _B.ol_,
Olfactory lobe; _Cr.ce_, crura cerebri; _Fi.p_, great longitudinal fissure;
_HH_, _HH_^1, lateral lobes of cerebellum; _Hyp_, hypophysis; _Med_, spinal
cord; _NH_, medulla oblongata; _Po_, pons Varolii; _VH_, cerebral
hemispheres; _Wu_, middle lobe (vermis) of cerebellum; _I-XII_, cerebral
nerves. (From Wiedersheim's _Comparative Anatomy_.)
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