to M. Coste's Memoir. 183 



Should you deem the Manuscript herewith sent to contain 

 such remarks on the Physiology of the Marsupialia, as may 

 render it at all interesting to your readers, and be worthy of 

 occupying a few pages in your periodical, I shall be gratified 

 and obliged. 



I remain, Sir, 



With much respect, 



Your obedient Servant, 



Richard Owen. 



To the Editor of the Magazine 

 of Natural History. 



Art. II. A Reply to the Communication addressed by M. Coste to 

 the French Academy of Sciences, entitled " Memoire en Reponse 

 a la lettre de M. R. Owen : " — in a Letter addressed to M. Arago, 

 Perpetual Secretary to the Academy. By Richard Owen, Esq. 

 F.R.S. &c. 



Sir, 



It gives me sincere regret to find that M. Coste, 

 in his communications to the Academy,* instead of acknow- 

 ledging, as he ought to have done, the mistaken impressions 

 under which he had examined, while in London, my prepa- 

 ration of the allantois of the kangaroo, should have persist- 

 ed in his endeavours to appropriate to himself, and to deprive 

 me of the credit of the discovery of that additional fact in 

 the history of marsupial developement. It is with still great- 

 er regret that I perceive in his Memoir to the Academy, al- 

 legations, which compel me again to appeal to the honourable 

 members of that learned body, in the maintenance of whose 

 good opinion I am much concerned. At the same time, in 

 this appeal, I shall restrain the expression of feelings which 

 the treatment I have received from M. Coste naturally excites, 

 and endeavour to blend with my statements such physiologi- 

 cal observations, as may render my communication not altoge- 

 ther a barren controversy for individual rights. 



M. Coste commences his Memoir to the Academy in reply 

 to my letter, by stating what is his view of the subject of con- 

 troversy between us. He says it relates "au sujet d'un foetus 

 uterin de kangaroo, qu'il, (M. Owen), designe sous le nom de 

 foetus et ses vesicules appendiculaires, et que nous conside- 

 rons, nous, comme un ceuf." In this assertion M. Coste would 



* Letter published in the 'C omptes Rendus Hebdomadaires,' February 

 3rd, 1838 ; and Memoir subsequently printed. 

 Vol, II.— No. 16. n. s. q 



