320 General Notes. [ May, 
NOTES ON THE RECENTLY DESCRIBED Monotremes.—With the 
appearance of Gervais’ Osteographie des Monotremes Vivant et 
Fossiles} zoodlogists are again reminded that not all that is to be 
known in regard to beings now living has yet been chronicled. 
This memoir follows close upon Mr. E. P. Ramsay’s papers read 
to the Linnzan Society of New South Wales. In the two we get 
materials which very greatly enlarge our knowledge of these 
curious porcupine-like animals with anteater-like tongues, of which 
the best and longest known example is Achidua hystrix. Mr. 
Ramsay describes a form apparently belonging to the old genus, 
which he calls, Æ. /awesi?, from Port Moresby, New Guinea; the 
number of nails being the same as in the old species, viz : five, 
both in front and behind; but I find upon comparing a skin of Æ. 
hystrix with his drawings that the inner nail is apparently some- 
what longer in his species. He observes that the species “ is dis- 
tinguished chiefly by the long cylindrical form of the quills, and 
the stiff, flat hair-like bristles on the face.” It is unfortunate that 
processes on the tongue and also the cranial and osteological 
differences which would have done much to establish the legiti- 
Echidna there never was more than seven of these series 
corroborates this, saying (Anatomy of Vertebrates vol. iil, p. 385), 
“The palate is armed with six or seven transverse rows of strong, 
sharp, but short retroverted spines.” The posteriorly convergent 
lines of spines on the basal portion of the tongue in Acanthoglos- 
sus furnished a further distinction from Echidna in which these 
are ina confused cluster. The four transverse fimbriated lamelle 
in front of this cluster of spines, as in Achidna, are absent. he 
“we 
tongue itself is about two and a-half times longer than in the old 
species, the basal two-thirds cylindrical, tapering and vermiform, 
but not acuminate at the tip, being rounded at the end and groovy 
on the dorsal face for about a third of its length. In the groove 
there are three longitudinal rows of backwardly directed spines, 
a median and two lateral. 
1 Bertrand. Paris, 1877-78, 
