ate. I carefully removed the uterus,
the apparent embryo and the mammae, and put it in a wide-mouthed bottle
with some spirits, and gave it in charge of the seaman who was to carry a
portion of the animal for the dinner of that day. It was placed in a
canvas bag, but on crossing a Deep watercourse he had the misfortune to
break the bottle, which he never mentioned until the following day. The
contents soon dried up and became an uniform mass. The intense heat had
rendered it so firm that nothing could be made of it; all the gelatinous
parts had adhered so firmly to the bag, that I was compelled to abandon
it. My object was to ascertain if there was a communication in a greater
state of development between the womb and posterior part of the mammae,
during the period of gestation; and I was fancying I had arrived at some
conclusion, but all my hopes were destroyed by one fatal smash! So many
theories have been formed on that point--that to advance this as a fact,
would be treading too firmly on tender ground. At the first view of the
gelatinous mass I seriously considered whether it could have been a
gland, and whether the pulsation might have been communicated from
muscular twitchings; I took my eye off the substance for some time, and
on again looking at it, felt more confident than ever, that it was not a
glandular substance. Its peculiar configuration and want of solidity
proved it indeed not to be gland; its motion, on touching it with the
point of the finger, was so much that of an embryonic animal, that I at
once, without further investigation, pronounced it a kangaroo.

"Might not the tube I discovered convey the animal to the posterior part
of the mammae, where it might become attached to the nipple in an
inverted state? At any rate it was not in the body of the uterus. Had the
mass been saved I should have taken one more look of inquiry without
attempting to alter its structure, and left the matter for the judicious
decision of some of the professors of comparative anatomy at home."

It may here be remarked that the birds met with on Houtman's Abrolhos,
with the exception of one, resembling in shape and colour a small quail,*
were known and common on the mainland. The aquatic species were also
familiar to us; but the habit of one kind, of a sooty-black colour,
generally called noddies, was quite new--that of building their nests,
which are constructed of seaweed and contain only one egg, in trees.
There were not