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XVI. Description of the fœtal membranes and placenta of the elephant (elephas indicus, cuv.), with remarks on the value of placentary characters in the classification of the mammalia

1857; Royal Society; Volume: 147; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1098/rstl.1857.0017

2053-9223

Owen Owen,

Bat Biology and Ecology Studies

Seba gives a figure of the fœtus of an Elephant in tab. iii. vol. i. of his great ‘Thesaurus’; but a knowledge of the fœtal membranes of this remarkable quadruped has long been a great desideratum in both physiology and zoology. From the period of my appointment to the Hunterian Professorship of Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, in 1836, I lost no opportunity of urging this desideratum upon the attention of correspondents in Ceylon and India; and, after some years, I had the gratification to receive a letter from Dr. Morton, an accomplished Army Medical Officer quartered in Ceylon, stating that he had forwarded to me the membranes of a fœtal Elephant, addressed to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. On the arrival of this specimen in a keg of arrack, I prosecuted as complete an examination as the condition of the parts would permit, and made the preparations (Nos. 3558 c. and 3558 d.), which are now in the Physiological Series of that Museum. The results of this examination were orally communicated in the Theatre of the College, in the 17th Lecture of my Course “On the Generation and Development of the Vertebrate Animals,” delivered in 1850; and were illustrated by diagrammatic views of the chief peculiarities which the parts presented. Circumstances prevented further publication of the facts at that time; but I am now able to submit the following description of the fœtal membranes and placenta of the Elephant to the Royal Society.