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86.11.16bPreferred Citation:
Richard Owen to Ferdinand von Mueller, 1886-11-16 [86.11.16b]. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id/86-11-16b>, accessed September 11, 2025
1
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'Sir Richard Owen on the platypus',
Gippsland times, 29 December 1886, p. 3. The article reports that M had sent to Richard Owen a nest
of a platypus together with young platypus specimens found by F. A. Hagenauer. The
letter was introduced by 'The following is a copy of Sir Richard's letter to Baron
von Mueller:—'.
The article is reprinted in Ballarat star, 31 December 1886, p. 3.
November 16, 1886.
Mr
dear Baron, —
2
Typsetter's error for 'My'?
Since the year 1832, when a paper " On the Mammary Glands of Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus
"was honored by a place in our "Philosophical Transactions,"
I have hoped to be spared to see and study the young animal who took advantage of
those glands. Year by year—decade after decade—passed away, and when I turned my own
80th year I thought, "some of the coming years may supply the coveted specimen to
a worthy successor," when lo! on the morning of my 83rd year, there was laid upon
the breakfast table a most carefully defended packet enclosing a small vial of alcohol,
in which floated a smaller newly hatched young mammary
of the long-coveted ornithorhynchus. Whilst acknowledging the truly interesting and
most acceptable letter from the kind and liberal donor
—the discoverer and first intimator of the oviparity of that monotreme —I cannot express
to you the pleasure and interest with which I have read and re-read your despatch,
or the grateful feelings thereby inspired toward the German mission station at Gippsland,
for the Rev. Pastor Hagenauer, his aides, and to Mr Le Souef, director of the zoological
gardens at Melbourne, from whom I have received an interesting letter (Oct. 4, Melbourne),
on the same physiological subject. I will only now add my best thanks and wishes to
you. Facts that I may observe or deduce from careful examination of the dear little
gem will he promptly communicated to you
by yours ever truly and obliged, —
3
Owen (1832).
4
In his 1832 article, Owen wrote of ‘the pressure of the young as these increase in
size during their mammary or marsupial existence'.
5
F. Hagenauer to M, 4 October 1886.
6
M to R. Owen, 5 October 1886 (in this edition as 86-10-05a).
7
R. Owen to M, 27 September 1887; Owen (1887).
Richard Owen