ORNITHORHYNCHUS PARADOXUS 



ORDER. PALMATA. FAMILY. BRUTA. 



By Frederick Ryland. 



This singular animal has excited the attention of naturalists in a very great 

 degree, from the peculiarities of its organization, which, until they were more 

 minutely investigated, caused some doubt as to whether it could properly be 

 arranged under any of the existing classes of vertebrata, and hence the name 

 Ornithorhynchus paradoxus was assigned it by Professor Blumenbach, and has 

 been retained to the present day. 



The body of the animal is rather flattened horizontally, and partakes of the 

 characters of the Otter, the Mole, and the Beaver.* Its length, measured from 

 the extremity of the mandible to the end of the tail, varies, in full-grown speci- 

 mens, from sixteen to twenty-three or twenty-four inches ; the male is generally 

 found to be, in a slight degree, larger than the female. The body is covered 

 externally with long silky hairs of a dark-brown colour approaching to black, 

 underneath which is a very fin^bft fur of a greyish colour, the latter being thick- 

 er and softer on the under sdft^ce of the animal. In the possession of these two 

 kinds of hair, the Ornithorhynchus resembles many of the amphibious quadru- 

 peds,' as the Otter and the Beaver. The tail is flat afcd broad, and varies in 

 length from four and a half to six inches ; the hair covering its upper surface is 

 longer and coarser thaa»Aat of any other part of the body, and projects a little 

 distance beyond the termination of the tail. 



The legs are exceedingly short ; the hinder ones rather shorter than the fore 

 legs ; the feet have each five toes, connected with each other by a strong mem- 

 branous expansion, like the feet of a Duck ; in the fore feet, which are the largest 

 and most powerful, the web extends a little distance beyond the extremities of the 

 claws, whilst in the hinder feet it attains only to the roots of the claws. The 

 claws on the fore feet are strong and blunt, and well adapted for burrowing, those 

 on the hind feet are sharp and curved backwards. The fore feet, with their 

 membranous web are, when expanded, four inches across, and that part of the web 



* See an account of the structure and habits of the Ornithorhynchus, in the Transactions 

 of the Zoological Society of London, vol. i., part iii., by Mr. G. Bennett, to which the author 

 is indebted for most of the facts contained in the present article. 



VOL. I. O 



