MR CALDWELL'S DISCOTERY.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 75, 8 November 1884, Page 3

MR CALDWELL'S DISCOTERY.

The following is a synopsis of the discussion at the British Association's meeting at Montreal on Mr Cald well's discovery. On the 3rd inst., "the president of the biological section, Professor Moseley, read a telegram from Professor Liversidge, of Sydney, New South Wales, staticg that Mr Caldweli finds the monotremes to be viviparous with mesoblastic ovum. Professor Moseley said that this contained the most important scientific news that had been communicated to the present meeting of the Association. Mr Caldweli was sent out to Australia as the first holder of the Balfour studentship, founded in honour of the late Professor F. M. Balfour, of Cambridge, for the prosecution of natural history research. The founders could not have wished a more glorious tribute to Professor Balfour's memory than the result announced. Briefly his significance was thus explained. The lowest known mammal, the ovnithorhynchus or duckbilled platypus, and the echidna or socalled spiny anteater of the Australian region, although like other mammals they suckle their young, lay eggs like birds. Further, the early stages of development of the ovum are unlike all other mammals, including, as Mr Caldweli has shown, marsupials, but are identical with those of birds and reptiles. The segmentation of the ovum is mesoblastic, not holoblastic. These startling and important results, he continued, point to the origin of the monotremata, and thus of all mammalia, and incidentally of man himself, from the repKlia rather than from amphibia, which latter origin has been lately advocated by several naturalists of the highest distinction. Professor Dobson spoke of the extreme importance of Mr Caldwell's discovery, and Mr Sedgwick moved a vote of thanks to Professor Liversidge and Mr Caldweli, which was adopted."

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