REPORT OX ZOOLOGY. 165 



another memoir on the part of Geoffroy, published in the ^nu. 

 des Sci. for 1829*. In 1832^ the controversy respecting the 

 existence of the mammary glands again arose. In June of that 

 year, Mr. Owen read a paper to the Royal Societyf , in which 

 he entered into a close investigation of the structure of these 

 glands, and decided altogether in favour of Meckel's opinion 

 that they were strictly lactiferous. This opinion was further 

 confirmed by a statement made the following September by 

 Dr. Weatherhead to the Zoological Society^, respecting the 

 positive discovery of milk in the instance of a female Ornitho- 

 rhynchus lately taken with its young in the interior of New South 

 Wales. In October of the same year, Mr. Owen laid before 

 the Zoological Society § the results of an anatomical investigation 

 of the mammary glands of the Echidna Hyshix, in which ani- 

 mal he was also led to believe that they were really lactiferous. 

 In February 1 833, Geoffroy published a memoir in the Gazette 

 MMicale\\, in which he stated that the secretion of these sup- 

 posed mammary glands was not really milk, but mucus, destined 

 for the nutriment of the newly hatched young. In the same 

 month, Blainville read a memoir^ to the Academy of Sciences at 

 Paris in support of Mr. Owen's opinion. In March, Geoffroy 

 made a communication to the Zoological Society** on the subject 

 of his last memoir, to which Mr. Owen replied, alleging argu- 

 ments against the probability of the secretion being mucus as 

 Geoffroy supposed. In July the controversy between these two 

 individuals was resumedif . Several other memoirs:}:^ have been 



• torn, xviii. p. 157. t Phil, Trans. 1832, p. 517. 



X Proceedings of Zool. Soc, p. 145. § Proceedingn ofZool. Soc, p. 179. 

 II See Proceedings of Zool. Soc. 1833, p. 28. 



If Nouv. Ann. die Mtis., torn. ii. p. 369. In this memoir, although Blainville 

 considers the Monotremata as mammiferous, he retains his former opinion with 

 respect to the propriety of instituting a subclass for them, as forming the trans- 

 ition from viviparous to oviparous animals. In the same subclass he suspects 

 the fossil Ichthyosaurus would claim a place. This, it will be observed, accords 

 with the views of Wagler already alluded to. 



*• Proceed., p. 28. ft Proceed, of Zool. Soc, p. 91. 



XI For abstracts of these memoirs see Z'/ns^i<«<, Nos. 4, 7, 9, 32, 33,40, 45, 

 and 46. From some of the later ones it will be seen that this controversy has 

 not been confined to the subject of the Monotremata. Geoffroy endeavoured 

 to make it appear prohable that the mammary glands of the Cetucea were of a 

 similar nature with the Monotrematic glands (as he terms them) in the Orni- 

 thorhynchus ; and that if this were proved to be the case, the Cetacea also should 

 be made to constitute a distinct class. Several facts and statements', however, 

 have been brought forward to demonstrate that these glands are certainly lac- 

 tiferous in the Cetacea, and I believe Geoffroy himself has since changed his 

 opinion on this head. 



» See an article by Dr. Traill in the Edinb. Neiv Phil. Journ. for July of the 

 present year (1834), p. 177. 



