Home, there
is the body of the uterus, from which the horns go off as appendages. The
opossum differs from all other animals in the structure of these parts,
but has a perfectly formed uterus; nor can I suppose it wanting in any of
the class Mammalia.
This animal, having no nipples, and no regularly formed uterus, Mr. Home
says, he was led to examine the female organ in birds, to see if there
was any analogy between the oviducts in any of that class, and the two
membranous uteri of this animal; but none could be observed; nor would it
be easy to explain how an egg could lie in the vagina to receive its
shell, as the urine from the bladder must pass directly over it. Finding
they had no resemblance to the oviducts in birds, Mr. Home was led to
compare them with the uteri of those lizards which form an egg, that is
afterwards deposited in a cavity corresponding to the uterus of other
animals, where it is hatched; which lizards may therefore be called
ovi-viviparous; and I find, says Mr.
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