474 ox THE FEMORAL GLAND OF OliS TTHOliHYyCHUS, 



Home, after referring to other animals as frogs, sharks, earth- 

 worms, insects, tfec, which also possess accessory copvilatory 

 organs, continues as follows : — 



" Having ascertained that a secretion is emitted through the 

 spur of the male into this socket, and the parts being so minute 

 as to require glasses of considerable power, I got Mr. Bauer to 

 examine the socket in the female ; and after overcoming consider- 

 able difficulties, the parts being very much corrugated, and yet 

 retaining their elasticity, he made out the form of this socket, 

 which corresponds exactly in shape to the spur itself : so that, 

 when completely introduced, it must be so grasped that the male 

 would he unable to withdraw it when coitus was over ; in this 

 respect resembling the effect of suction. The male, it would 

 appear — at least this is the best conjecture I can make by reason- 

 ing from analogy, there being no facts to guide us — by throwing 

 some of the secretion of the gland in the thigh into the socket, 

 dilates it, and releases the spur ; the liquor injected being acri- 

 monious, will also irritate the female, and make her use efforts to 

 escape." 



In 1823 Meckel described* the femoral gland and its duct 

 communicating with the spur. He shoAved that the cyst described 

 by Blainville and Hill was in reality the dilatation of the duct 

 just before entei'ing the canal of the spur. 



He afterwards (1826) published a monograph! on the anatomy 

 of the Ornithorhynchus, in which he gives a complete account, 

 together with several drawings, of the femoral gland and spur. 



In 1824 R. Knox published an account; (jf these glands, in 

 which, however, we have been unal)le to find any points of import- 

 ance not treated of bv Meckel. 



♦ Ueber den ^tacliel and das Giftorgan des Oniitliorhynchus. Deut. 

 Archiv filr Physiol. Bd. viii. 



tDescriptio anatomica Oniitliorhynclii paradoxi. Lips. 182 5. 



J Observations on the Anatomy of the Duckbilled Animal of N.8.W. — 

 the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus of Naturalists. Mem. Wernerian Soc. 

 Nat. Hist. 1824. 



