Abstract The cheek pouch is a useful microcirculatory preparation which has both advantages and disadvantages as outlined below and should be chosen for use with these characteristics in mind. There are several advantages to the use of the cheek pouch over other tissues. (1) The ease of access and relatively non-traumatic double layered preparation make it useful in low magnification studies requiring repeated observation of the same site. (2) The pouch is highly vascular and all classes of microcirculatory vessels can usually be seen within the field of the microscope. Thus, comparative studies on the various microvascular segments are possible. (3) The clarity and optical properties of the pouch are good when compared with other densely vascularized tissues. (4) The pouch possesses both skeletal muscle and cutaneous microcirculatory beds. Therefore, it is particularly useful for comparative studies. Also this arrangement allows one to study the effects of skeletal muscle stimulation on a vascular bed and to use the noncontractile portion of the pouch as a control site. The hamster cheek pouch also suffers from several disadvantages. (1) The animals must be anesthetized. (2) Fairly extensive dissection and clearing of the pouch is required for high resolution studies. (3) The pouch preparation is virtually alymphatic and therefore is not a suitable tissue for studies of water flux. (4) The nerve and blood supplies are diffuse and therefore the pouch is not well suited for perfusion studies or for denervation experiments.