Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
73/494 page 65
![and examined with attention what was contained in the vagina and uterus; in neither could I find any of the mucus of the vesi- cule, which from its firmness must have been easily detected. In the hedgehog these bags are very large, being more than twice the size of the vesiculze in the human subject. _ Many animals have no such bags; and I believe they are want- food ; they are, however, to be found in some of them, and the hedgehog is an example.* There is no apparent difference in the vesiculee and of those which have none; and the mode of copula- tion, as far as these bags can be concerned, is very similar in both. In birds, as far as I. have yet observed, there is nothing analo- the mode of copulation of the drake and the bull or ram. It is very natural to suppose that if the vesiculee were reservoirs of semen they would be more necessary in birds, who have the power of repeating the act of copulation in an infinitely greater degree than quadrupeds; and indeed we find that in birds there are reser- voirs, which may account for this power; the vasa deferentia being enlarged just before they open into the rectum, probably to answer that intention. As birds have no urethra, some having merely a groove, as the drake and gander,f and many being even without a groove, as the common fowl, it was absolutely necessary there should be such a reservoir somewhere; and the necessity of this will appear more evidently by and by. What I have observed of the reservoir of birds is equally appli- cable to amphibious animals, and to that order of fish called rays. these vesicule are not for the purpose of containing semen: the single circumstance of their ducts being united to those of the tes- ticles in the human subject not appearing sufficient to set aside the many facts which are contradictory to such an opinion. __ Having endeavoured to show that the function of these vesicule has hitherto been misunderstood, the following observations will particular use is not yet discovered ; and, for the better understand- ing this part of the subject, I shall premise the following facts. Animals have their natural feelings raised or increased accord- ing to the perfection of the parts connected with such feelings ; and the disposition for action is also in proportion to the state of the * [The vesicule seminales are wanting in all the Fere with the exception of the Insectivora; also in the Ruminants, in the carnivorous Cetacea, and in all the Marsupiata; they are equally wanting in the insectivorous Monotremata, which of all mammiferous animals approximate most closely to the oviparous Vertebrata. ] . to be as here described, viz., a groove, and not a complete canal, as represented by Sir Everard Home. See Phil. Trans. 1802, p. 361, pl. xii.] rh waZ](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33292292_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
