23 



II V'1\PIS 



enlarged, and flatteued, resembling the Leak of a duck ; 

 the mouth, two on each side, with flat tops and no roots, 

 uniting the toes, and in the an- 

 terior feet extenihng beyond the 

 nails. The mah^ has a spur on 

 each of the hind legs. Auent the 

 properties of this spur, the fol- 

 lowing correspondence recently 

 appeared in the daily press : — 



THE SPUR OF THE PLATYPUS. 



TO THE BUITOR OF THE "ARfiCS." 



Sir,— The letter of Mr. Round, of War- 

 ragul, has drawn attention to the very 

 interesting ease read Ijefore the Medical 

 Society by Dr. Lalor, of Richmond. His 

 quotation from Darwin is correct. It is 

 impossible to understand how such a state- 

 ment could have got into his great book, 

 for it appears, so far as I can find, to be 

 absolutely false. As everybody has not 

 got such a ponderous work as the En- 

 cyclojptvdia Britannica at his elbow, I wish 

 you would be good enough to print the following quotation. Further true anatomical and 

 found in the late Professor Owen's Comparative Anatomy of the Verli'braten. — I am, &c., 



University, 24th April. 



" ENcycLOPJSDiA Bkitannica," 

 Vol. XIX., p. 214, Art. "Thk 

 Pl.^typcs " (By Prof. W. H. 

 Flower). — "The limbs are very 

 short, each with fine well-developed 

 toes provided with strong claws. In 

 the fore feet the web not only tills 

 the spaces between the toes, but ex- 

 tends considerably beyond the ends 

 of the long, broad, and somewhat 

 flattened nails, giving great expanse 

 to the foot when used for swim- 

 ming, though capable of Ijeing 

 folded back on the palm when the 

 animal is burrowing or walking on 

 the land. On the hind foot the 

 uails are long, curved, and pointed, 

 and the web extends only to tlieir 

 base. On the heel of the male is 

 a strong, curved, sharply-pointed 

 movable horny spur directed up- 

 wards and backwards, attached by 

 its expanded base to the accessory 

 bone of the tarsus. This spur, whicli 

 attains the length of nearly an iiic!], 

 is traversed by a minute canal, ter- 

 minating in a tine longitudinal slit 

 near the point, and connected at its 

 base with the duct of a large gland 

 situated at tlie l>ack part ot tlic 

 thigh. The whole apparatus is so 

 exactly analogous in structure to 

 the poison gland and tooth of a 

 venomous snake as to suggest a 

 similar function, but evidence that 

 the platypus ever employs its spur 

 as an offensive weapon has, at all 

 events, until lately been wanting. 

 A case is, however, related liy Mr. 

 Spicer in the proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of Tasmania for 1876 



THE HOME OF TH K Pr.ATVPrS. 



the teeth are sitirated in the bai:k part of 

 The feet arejfurnished with a membrane 



physiological 

 iEORGE B 



facts may be 

 HALFORD. 



