BY C. J. MARTIX AND FRANK TIDSWELL. 473 



imperfect state of his spirit specimens did not permit him to 

 determine this point. He regarded the apparatus as a weapon 

 compensating for the otherwise defenceless condition of a small 

 animal destitute of teeth. 



In 1822 Dr. Patrick Hill, of Liverpool, JST.S.W., recorded* having 

 examined a specimen which he shot. He found the spur was 

 perforated, and had a cyst at its base. He mentioned being told 

 i)y an aboriginal that a wound from the spur of the male is 

 followed by swelling and great pain, l)ut although his informant 

 iiad seen many cases of it, he had neAer known it fatal. 



In 1823 Home published his "Lectures on Comparative Ana- 

 tom}'." After describing the spur he refers to Jamieson's letter 

 in which he narrated the finding of the canal in this structure. 

 Home failed to find this in the first specimens he examined; 

 subsequently however he succeeded. He says : — 



" Upon examining the spur in a state of better preservation, I 

 not only find a membranous tube passing through the spur, which 

 has an orifice on one side near the point, but Mr. Clift succeeded, 

 in my presence, in injecting a duct leading to a gland which lies 

 across the back part of the thigh, over the muscles, an inch or 

 more in length, and half an inch broad ; the excretory duct passes 

 like one ureter of the kidney, out of one side near the middle. 

 The quicksilver injected immediately pervaded every part of the 

 gland, and when the point of the pipe was turned downwards, 

 ran readily to the root of the spur, where the duct made a turn, 

 and formed a small reservoir. After a little time, however, the 

 mucus being gently squeezed and pressed forward, we saw the 

 mei'cur}^ in the spur, and at last it came out of the orifice. When 

 I first saw the spur, I had no doubt from its situation but that 

 one of its jjurposes was to prevent the escape of the female during 

 the act of the coitus ; in this I was confirmed when I found in 

 the female, exactly in the same situation, a regular socket, lined 

 with strong cuticle, adapted to the reception of the spur." 



* On the Ornithorhi/nchvx paradoxrix ; its Venomoua Spur and General 

 StrucUire. Trans. Linn. Soc. Vol. xiii. 622 (1822). 

 33 



