Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/298

 this abundant thicker renal secretion is seen ; it is conspicuous in serpents and other ovipara, particularly in those whose eggs are covered with a harder or firmer membrane. And here, too, is the thicker in larger proportion than the thinner and more serous portion ; its consistency being midway between thick urine and stercoraceous excrement: so that, in its passage through the ureters, it resembles coagulated or inspissated milk ; once discharged it soon concretes into a friable mass.

EXERCISE THE EIGHTH.

Of the situation and structure of the remaining parts of the fowl's uterus.

Between the stomach and the liver, over the spine, and where, in man and other animals the pancreas is situated; between the trunk of the porta and the descending cava; at the origin of the renal and spermatic arteries, and where the cseliac artery plunges into the mesentery, there, in the fowl and other birds, do the ovary and the cluster of yelks present themselves ; having in their front the trunk of the porta, the gullet, and the orifice of the stomach : behind them, the vena cava and the aorta descending along the spine ; above the liver, and beneath the stomach, lie adjacent. The infundibulum, therefore, which is a most delicate membrane, descends from the ovary longitudinally with the spine, between it and the gizzard. And from the infundibulum (between the gizzard, the intestines, the kidneys, and the loins,) the processus uteri or superior portion of this organ descends with a great many turnings and cells (like the colon and rectum in man), into the uterus itself. Now the uterus, which is continuous with this process, is situated below the gizzard, between the loins, the kidneys, and the rectum, in the lower part of the abdomen, close to the cloaca ; so that the egg surrounded with its white, which the uterus contains, is situated so low that, with the fingers, it is easy to ascertain whether it be soft or hard, and near the laying.

The uterus in the common fowl varies both in point of size