322 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
menting on the above, says: “In addition to this, |] may say 
here that I found the egg on the 25th of August last in the 
mammary pouch (not the uterus) of a living Achidua hystrix, 
received about the 3rd of the same month from Kangaroo 
Island, through the kindness of Mr. A. Molineux. The egg was 
unfortunately decomposed inside, but the circumstance of the 
mother having been worried by being captured and kept in cap- 
tivity easily accounts for this.” 
In the absence of more definite information it is impossible 
to say how far either of these discoveries has forestalled the 
other, but it would seem from the remarks made by Prof. Moseley 
at Montreal that Mr. Caldwell’s researches had been pretty 
thorough and conclusive. It would also seem that the latter was 
working on Ornithorhyncus, which has neither marsupial pouch 
nor mammee (the ducts opening on a flat surface), and in which 
the young after birth are kept in a subterranean nest ; while Dr. 
Haacke’s discovery refers to Echidna in which there is, if not a 
true marsupial pouch, at least a mammary depression, which 
appears to serve as a receptacle for the young. In Balfour’s 
Comparative Embryology (Vol. II., p. 198) there occurs the fol- 
lowing interesting foot-note :—“On the 8th of December, Dr. 
Bennet discovered in the subterranean nest of Ornithorhyncus 
three living young, naked, not quite two inches in length.” On 
the 12th of August, 1864, a female Echidna hystrit was cap- 
tured . . . . having a young one with its head buried in a 
mammary or marsupial fossa. This young one was naked, of a 
bright red colour, and one inch two linesin length.” Naturalists 
everywhere will look with impatience for the complete published 
results of Mr. Caldwell’s researches. 
The following letter by Prof. Gill, of Montreal, which appears 
in “Science” of November 14th, would seem to show, however, 
that neither Mr. Caldwell nor Dr. Haacke have made a new dis- 
covery, but have simply re-discovered an old one :— 
“ The editorial comments in a recent number of‘ Science’ (p. 
412), on the revival of forgotten statements, lead me to believe 
that some more old matter may be revived with profit. The 
telegram sent to the meeting of the British Association from 
Professor Liversidge, announcing the fact ascertained by Mr W. 
H. Caldwell, that Ornithorhyncus lays eggs, has been universally 
hailed as an entirely new discovery ; and a number of the pro- 
minent British zodlogists, whom we had the pleasure of welcoming 
to Washington recently, were unaware that the oviparity of the 
monotreme had long before been definitely announced, and an 
egg figured. Nevertheless, such is the fact; and an extensive 
series of old comments and applications of the fact appears in the 
literature of zodlogy. I need only refer to some of the most 
prominent, and others can follow up the subject in the publica- 
tions of the day. 
“Tn 1829 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire published a memoir in the 
Annales des Sciences Naturelles (X VIII., 157-164), in which he 
reproduced 2 figure of an egg of the natural size (pl. 3, fig. 4). 
i te 
