162 M. Lesson on the Natural History of the 



long drought had very much diminished the depth of its waters. 

 It was fordable in most places. The Omithori/nchi, which are 

 called Water-Moles by the colonists, and Moujlengong by the 

 natives, inhabit the banks of this river in considerable abun- 

 dance, while they haye become very rare on those of the Ne- 

 pean. They are still pretty numerous at the proper season in 

 Campbell and Macquarrie Rivers, and at Newcastle. The 

 specific name of paradoxus has been given to this singular ani- 

 mal *, of which Shaw has made his genus Platypus, and Blu- 

 menbach the genus Ornithm-ynchus. Its extraordinary forms 

 seem to sanction this name. Dr Knox, when he announced 

 to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, his beautiful disco- 

 very of the crural gland, which communicates by a canal with 

 the spur with which the hind feet are armed, was virulently 

 attacked by a physician of Port Jackson, in the Sydney Ga- 

 zette, The Australian doctor denied the existence of the 

 gland and its duct, and supported his opinion by the con- 

 sideration that there was no proof that a dangerous wound 

 had ever been inflicted in the country. He asserted, that these 

 spurs, of which the female individuals never have any, are in- 

 tended for the purpose of assisting the males to lay hold of the 

 females, and to keep them immoveable during the act of gene- 

 ration. Subsequent observations have reduced these assertions 

 to their true value. The colour of the fur of the ornithorynchus 

 is ordinarily dark brown. Some varieties of age or sex that have 

 been considered as species, are of a reddish colour. ' Mr Mur- 

 doch, the superintendant of the farm of Emeu Plains, assured 

 me that he had found ornithorynchus's eggs, and that they were 

 of the size of those of a domestic fowl. 



After having waited for several hours in a state of perfect 

 immobility, to see if any of these animals would make their ap- 

 pearance, I left the banks of Fish River, and the small rocks on 

 a level with the water, to which they resort on issuing from 

 their holes. I was afterwards informed, that, at this season of 

 the year (January and February), the ornithorynchus remains 

 close in its burrow, and only appears at the time of the great 



• See Peron, "Voyage aux Terres Australes ; Desmarest's Mammiferes ; 

 Vanderhoeven, Nov. Act. Acad. Caes. Leop. Cavol. t. xi. Knox, in the Me-. 

 moirs of the Wernerian Society, and the Annales des Sciences Naturelles ; Sir 

 Everard Home j BlainviUe, &c. &c. 



