Abstract
IT is almost superfluous to add anything to Prof. Flower's reply (p. 151) to Dr. Hart Merriam. In justice, however, to Mr. Poulton, it ought, I think, to be stated that he fully refers to Home's paper in the Philosophical Transactions. In the Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., vol. xxix. p. 27 (a paper to which Dr. Hart Merriam alludes as though he had read it) Mr. Poulton, describing the horny plates of Ornithorhynchus, writes as follows “Home (Phil. Trans., 1802, p. 71) correctly describes these horny plates as differing ‘from common teeth very materially, having neither enamel nor bone, but being composed of a horny substance only embedded in the gum,’” &c. I observe too, with great interest, that in the same paper Home makes use of the expression (p. 70) “the teeth, if they can be so called.” On p. 28 Mr. Poulton quotes in full the passage from Owen given by Prof. Flower. Perhaps Dr. Hart Merriam does not accept Owen's correction of Home's hypothesis. It is hardly necessary to point out that the teeth which Mr. Poulton describes (p. 15 et seq.) under the headings (1) tooth papilla; (2) dentine; (3) enamel; (4) inner epithelium of enamel organ; (5) stratum inter-medium of Hannover; (6) middle membrane of enamel organ; and (7) outer membrane of enamel organ, must be very different from those which Home calls “cuticular,” and further qualifies as in the sentence which I have quoted.
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LATTER, O. Who Discovered the Teeth in Ornithorhynchus?. Nature 41, 174 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/041174a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041174a0
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