EDENTATA. 169 



similarly furnished with small transverse laminae. They have no 

 teeth except at the bottom of the mouth, where there are two 

 throughout, without roots, with flat crowns, and composed like 

 those of the Orycteropus, of little vertical tubes. There is a mem- 

 brane to the fore feet, which not only unites the toes, but extends 

 far beyond the nails ; in the hind feet the membrane terminates at 

 the root of the nails ; two characters, v/hich, with the flattened 

 tail, make them aquatic animals. Their tongue is in a manner 

 double : one in the bill bristled with villosities ; and a second on the 

 base of the first, which is thicker, and furnished anteriorly with two 

 little fleshy points. The stomach is small, oblong, and has the py- 

 lorus near the cardia. The caecum is small ', and many salient and 

 parallel laminse are visible in the intestines. The penis has only 

 two tubercles. The Ornithorhynchi inhabit the rivers and marshes 

 of New Holland in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson. 



Two species only are known, one with smooth, thin, reddish 

 fur, the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, Blumenb., and the other 

 with blackish-brown, flat and frizzled hair. Probably these are 

 only varieties of age. Voy. de Peron, I, pi. xxxiv. 



ORDER VII. 



PACHYDERMATA. 



The Edentata terminate the series of unguiciilated animals, 

 and we have just seen that there are some of them whose 

 nails are so large, and so envelope the extremities of the toes, 

 as to approximate them in a certain degree to the hoofed 

 animals. They still, however, possess the faculty of bending 

 these toes round various objects, and of seizing with more or 

 less force. The total deficiency of this faculty characterizes 

 the hoofed animals. Using their feet merely as supporters, 

 they are never furnished with clavicles; their fore-arm is 

 always in a state of pronation, and they are reduced to the 

 necessity of feeding on vegetables. Their forms and habits 

 present much less variety than those of the Unguiculata, and 

 they can hardly be divided into more than two orders, those 

 which ruminate, and those which do not ; but these latter, 

 Vol. I. W 



