g$6 Mr. Home's Description of the Anatomy 
The urethra for the urine opens into the rectum, about an 
inch from the anus ; and the passage for the semen goes into 
the penis, in the same manner as in the paradoxus. 
The penis is very elastic in its substance ; when drawn out, it 
is about three inches long ; but, from having been so long kept 
in spirit, is not sufficiently ductile to allow of an accurate judg- 
ment respecting its real length. The glans is externally subdi- 
vided into four equal processes ; in the centre of each of these 
is an orifice, surrounded by concentric circles of infinitely small 
prominent papillae. 
There is a gland on each side of the rectum, the size and 
situation of which are delineated in Plate XII. ; each of these has 
a small excretory duct, which passes to the root of the penis, 
where they unite, and then open by one common orifice into 
the urethra for the semen, T *~ of an inch after it has entered 
the penis. 
These glands must be considered as corresponding to Cowper's 
glands in the human subject, and not as a substitute for the 
prostate gland, or the vesicular seminales, since something ana- 
logous is met with in the female. 
In my account of the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, these 
glands are described as belonging to the rectum. This mistake 
arose from the parts being so much coagulated, by long con- 
tinuance in strong spirit, as to make it impossible to distinguish 
the excretory duct from the surrounding blood-vessels, or 
other parts. In the specimen of the Hystrix from which this 
description is taken, the parts were in the same state, and 
would have led me into a similar error, had I not been fa- 
voured by Sir Joseph Banks with a specimen of the paradoxus, 
brought from New South Wales by Mr. Belmain, which had 
