Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 1.djvu/89

Rh the most striking peculiarities, from which some idea may be gathered of the importance of this performance.

Bides four grinding teeth, one at each end of the two jaws, the animal has two small pointed horny teeth upon the projecting part of the posterior portion of the tongue, the points of which are directed forwards. These, it is thought, are intended to prevent the food from being pushed into the fances during the process of masﬁcatiou; and such have as yet been observed in no animal except the ﬂa- mingo, which has a row of similar small teeth at each side of the tongue.

The ﬁfth pair of nerves, which supplies the muscles of the face, and extend to the membrane that covers the bills, were found un- commonly large ; whence it is inferred that probably the sensibility of the diﬂ‘erent parts of this bill is very great, and that being capable of nice discrimination in its feeling, it answers in some respects the purposes of a hand.

A strildng peculiarity is observed in the structure of the bones of the chest. The scapulae, which are of an uncommon shape, are not connected with the chest, but with a bone placed above the sternum, the upper part of which answers the purpose of clavicles. The car- tilages also of the ribs are not placed next the sternum but between two portions, and about the middle of each rib : and the false ribs have their cartilages terminated by thin bony scalm, which slide on one another in the motions of the chest. From this singular con- struction, it appears that the capacity of the chest can undergo a very considerable degree of contraction and dilatation.

On each of the hind legs of the male, at the setting on of the heel, is a crooked, strong, sharp-pointed spur, which is retractile, but may be considerably extended. Its use is conjectured to be the conﬁning the female in the act of copulation : but in nothing, perhaps, does this animal differ more from the other quadrupeds than in the parts of generation. Externally there is no appearance of these organs in either sex, the oriﬁce of the anus being a common opening to the rectum and prepuce in the male, and to the rectum and vagina in the female. The testicles are situated in the cavity of the abdomen, the glans penis is double, one part being directed to the right and the other to the left. The female has no regularly formed uterus, but towards the end of the vagina are two openings, each leading into a cavity resembling the horn of the uterus in quadrupeds, but terminating in a fallopian tube, which opens into the capsule of an ovarium. From various circumstances attending this singular conﬁguration, and from some analogy it bears to the similar organ in birds, our author is inclined to believe that this animal will be found to be oviparous in its mode of generation.