iSl7.] Linnean Society, 325 
the radicles of plants vegetate downwards, and the stems upwards, 
against the attack made upon it by the Rev. Patrick Keith in the 
last volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Mr. 
Knight admits that, if his hypothesis had been supported only in 
the way in which it has been represented by Mr. Keith, the refuta- 
tion of it would have been very easy: but Mr. Keith, he affirms, 
has omitted the principal arguments which he had advanced in 
support of it. This he admits was owing to a defect of memory on 
the part of Mr. Keith. But he conceives that every person who 
takes upon himself to controvert the statements of another ought in 
honour to be in a state to represent these statements fairly, and that 
he is responsible for the accuracy of the representation which he 
gives of the opinion of another. 
Mr. Knight then proceeded to give his arguments in favour of 
the hypothesis which he advanced, and showed the omissions of 
which Mr. Keith had been guilty. He next adverted to the facts 
which Mr. Keith has brought forward in opposition to Mr. Knight’s 
hypothesis, and gave an explanation of them. He concluded his 
paper by some observations on Mr. Keith’s own hypothesis, instinct, 
which he considered as unsatisfactory and unmeaning. 
On Tuesday, March 18, a paper by Sir James Edward Smith, 
Pr. L.S. was read, elucidating some obscurities in the genus for- 
dilium. ‘The author shows that the species apulum and officinale 
have been frequently confounded by preceding botanists. He points 
gut the distinction, and explains the proper references. 
At the same meeting was read a description, by Dr. Leach, of 
the Wapiti deer, a species of animal from the banks of the Mis- 
souri, four of which, brought from America by Mr. Taylor, are at 
present exhibiting in the King’s Mews, London. The animal is 
gentle, docile, and elegant. It is said to be domesticated in 
America by the natives. Mr. Taylor is of opinion that it might be 
used with advantage in this country in many cases as a substitute 
for horses. 
At the same meeting a letter from Sir John Jamieson to Mr. 
Macleay was read, giving an account of a striking peculiarity in the 
ornithorinchus paradoxus of New Holland. Sir John Jamieson, 
who is at present in New Holland, shot one of these animals 
with small shot, and his overseer went and picked up the 
wounded animal. It ran one of its spurs into his hand. In a 
short time his arm swelled, his jaw became clenched, and he exhi- 
bited all the symptoms of persons bitten by venomous serpents. 
The symptoms yielded to the external application of oil and the 
internal of ammonia; but the man suffered acute pain, and had 
not recovered the use of his arm in a month. On examining the 
spur, it was found to be hollow; and on pressing it a quantity of 
venom was squirted out. For what purpose the animal is supplied 
with this venom does not appear, though probably it is to wound 
and destroy its prey, 
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