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Show 166 PROF. OWEN ON ORNITHORHYNCHUS. [Mar. 6, would reach that height: and such floods are not common, as the opposite side of the creek is flat. " * The Echidna, or Native Porcupine, is very numerous in the Gomarren Scrub, Merugaden, lately a portion of Gowrie run, but now the homes of many free selectors. A friend, Mr. Wilcox, caught four for me, but injudiciously placed them in his garden, from which they soon escaped by burrowing. I regretted this, as it was the supposed season of the year for their breeding. They are often found about the nests of the Brush-Turkeys (Talega.Ua). A lad one day brought me a young one which I considered was about two months old.' " These notes, besides the interest of the direct observations on the burrows and nests of the Ornithorhynchus, and the success of the experiment of feeding the young with lukewarm slightly sweetened milk, for three days, which in some degree supports the conclusions on the function of the abdominal glands of the Monotremes1, affords a valuable indication of the probable period at which the female Ornithorhynchus may be got in the impregnated state. The specimen with uterine ova, described in ' Phil. Trans.' 1834, p. 555, was shot by Dr. Bennett, on the 7th October ; the first pair of young were discovered by his son on the 28th October; the second pair, discovered on the 19th November, were somewhat smaller. The young Ornithorhynchi taken in 1832 by Dr. Bennett, from a nest on the banks of the Mur-rumbidgee river, which young measured only 1-| inch in length (in a straight line), and were considered by him to have been recently brought forth2, were discovered on the 8th December. From this it may be inferred that the breeding-season of the Ornithorhynchus has a certain range in time. They may bring forth in one river a few weeks earlier or later than in another ; and there seems to be a difference of a week or two, in this respect, in the same river. But the months of September, October, and November are those in which there seems to be most chance of obtaining a pregnant Platypus. Of the breeding-season of the Echidna I have not yet received as satisfactory indications. It would seem to be earlier in the year, as the young in the rudimental pouch, described and figured in the paper above cited3, was stated to have been found, with the mother (which was captured), on the 12th August. The moith of July might be the time favourable for obtaining a female Echidna in the impregnated state. As the Echidna is very numerous in a locality which may be within the range of observation of the author of the preceding ' Notes,' I feel sanguine that the means of determining the uterine and fcetal membranes and appendages of the Monotremes will be afforded to the anatomist at no great distance of time. 1 ' Phil. Trans.' 1832, p. 517, and ' Phil. Trans.' 1865, p. 671. 2 ' Phil. Trans.' 1834, p. 566. 3 Phil. Trans. 1865, p. 678. |