130 Dr Knox on a rudwientary Spur in the 



country, intelligent and experienced in the art of Horticulture, 

 I saw the branches of a number of cucumber plants, both 

 of the Russian kind, and of that common to Britain, tied up to 

 wooden rafters or palings in the manner of vines. The plants 

 treated in this way appeared to be remarkably strong, and the 

 fruit was very large. 



Notice respecting the Presence of a Rudimentary Spur in the 

 Female Echidna of New Holland* By R. Knox, M. D., 

 F. R. S. E., M. W. S., Conservator of the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. Communicated by the Author. 



-In the beginning of the year 1823, Professor Jameson put 

 into my hands a specimen of the duck-billed animal of New 

 Holland, the male Ornithorynchus paradoxus. It had been sent 

 to him by the governor of Australasia, the Honourable Sir 

 Thomas Brisbane ; and, aware that I was continually engaged 

 in anatomical inquiries, he requested me to dissect this para- 

 doxical animal, and to lay the results before the Wernerian 

 Society. At that time the only accounts in existence relative 

 to the anatomy of the spur, a remarkable appendage found in 

 the male of the Ornithorynchus and Echidna, were, 1st, An ac- 

 count of the spur, drawn up by a distinguished English anato- 

 mist, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, describe 

 ing the organ to be solid, and to be an instrument of prehen- 

 sion ; ^d, A statement made by Rudolphi, in a German jour- 

 nal, affirming the spur to be solid ; M, A notice by Sir John 

 Jamison, in the Linnean Transactions, describing the poison- 

 ous nature of wounds, inflicted by this spur of the Ornithoryn- 

 chus ; lastly, A short memoir by that most distinguished anato- 

 mist M. De Blainville, demonstrating the tubular structure of 

 the spur, and tracing its anatomy as far as the base, or insertion 

 of the spur, into the heel, beyond which the state of the speci- 

 men in his possession did not permit him to go. 



The discovery of a large poison-gland, situated over the hip- 

 joint, which discovery I had the honour to submit to the Wer- 



• Read before the Wernerian Natural History Society, 27th May 1826. 



