( 1S7 ) 
Y .—Description of a New Species of Ormitho- 
rynchus. 
By Mr William Macgillivray, M. W. S. 
{Read 22d January 1825.) 
The labours of the anatomist, important as they are, 
and high as is the rank which they occupy in the scale of 
science, are, in many cases, lost to the scrupulous and intel- 
ligent naturalist, from the circumstance that the animals to 
which they refer have not been described with sufficient 
precision, to enable him to determine with certainty the 
species to which they belong. This has been particularly 
the case with the Ornithorynchus : from the vagueness of 
the notices given with respect to the more obvious, though 
not less characteristic, and not less natural, features, of the 
species or varieties of this genus dissected by anatomists, 
we can only be certain that they have described some par- 
ticular species or variety. The fact appears to be, that 
anatomists, like other people, have pretty frequently a no- 
tion that nothing is, or can be, so very important as their 
own pursuits ; they forget that the general form, the cover- 
ing, the clawSj the mouth, nostrils and ears, — in short. 
