2 LOBD LILFOKD ON A HTBBID DUCK. [Jan. 15, 



of a Platypus {Ornitlwrhynclms anatiniis) received from bis former 

 pupil Ml-. J. P. Hill, Demonstrator of Biology in the University of 

 Sydney. It illustrated a paper receutly read by Messrs. Hill and 

 C. J. Martin before the Linnean Society of New South Wales\ The 

 embyro had been obtained from one of two eggs "just ready to be 

 laid," which Messrs. Hill and Martin collected during a recent 

 holiday-expedition in Australia. The eggs measured each 18 mm. by 

 13-5 nim., and were somewhat larger than those described by Caldwell. 

 Prof. Howes briefly recapitulated the circumstances of the Caldwell 

 and Semon Australian expeditions, and remarked that the same post 

 brought him the photograph exhibited and an author's copy of 

 Prof. Semon's first monograph^ on the development of the Mono- 

 tremata and Marsupialia, which he laid upon the table. He 

 commented upon the high artistic merit of the photograph, and 

 briefly recapitulated the facts which Messrs. Hill and IMartin had 

 already recorded from the study of the object itself. He pointed 

 out that the stage in development which the former depicted was 

 intermediate between those thus far described by Semon, and that 

 therefore the facts which it revealed were novel ; and remarked 

 that he brought it forward in testimony to the assertion that our 

 countrymen at the Antipodes are doing their best, as opportunity 

 occurs, to protect us against the slur which is being cast upon us, 

 in connexion -with the well-known circumstances to which he had 

 sufficiently alluded. Criticising the photograph, he drew attention 

 to the appearances presented by the myelomeres (somatic neuro- 

 meres) as compared with the encephalomeres (cephalic neuromeres), 

 regarded by M'^Clure as homologous sets of structures. The 

 appearances which the myelomeres presented (unless indicative 

 of mere cell-differentiation and localization during development) 

 seemed to him to suggest that they might be compound struc- 

 tures, and that in each 'myelomere' we might be dealing M-ith a 

 product of union of neuromeres of the encephalomeric order, and 

 to therefore raise a question of manifest mterest, in its bearings 

 upon the metamerism of the vertebrate body, and upon the recent 

 conclusions of Orr, MTlure^ and others concerning the segmental 

 value of the brain and head region. 



The Secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. E. Lydekker, F.Z.S., 

 a hfe-sized drawing of Idmrns zenl-eri, a new and remarkably small 

 form of Plying Squirrel from West Africa, recently described by 

 Herr Matschie (Sitz.-B. Ges. nat. Preunde, Berlin, 1894, p. 197). 



The Secretary, on behalf of Lord Lilford, F.Z.S., exhibited the 

 skin of a Duck, believed to be a hybrid between the Mallard (Anas 



^ Cf. Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W., Nov. 28, 1894, p. ii. 



- " Zool. Forscliungsreisen in Austr. u. d. Malay. Archipel'' (Denkschr. d. 

 Med. Naturwiss. Gesellscb. Jena, Bd. v. p. 3). 



' Cf. M<^Clure, Anat. Anzeiger, Bd. xii. p. 435, and Joum. Morph. vol. iv. 

 p. 35. 



