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Sketch of Ornilhorh^hcus Paradoxus, By M. BiuMENBACH. See our Journal, Vol. IV. 



page 506. 



T. 



HIS animal, fee PI. XXIV. Fig. 4. was prefented to the author by the Right Hon. 

 Sir Jofeph Banks. It abounds in a lake of New Holland, near Botany Bay. The form 

 of its body^ with the exception of the head, is nearly flmilar to that of a fmall otter. Its 

 mouth is large, flat, covered with'a naked Ikin, and is nearly fimilar to the beak of a 

 duck. The edges of its lowerjaw, are furniflied, as in the abovementioned fowl, with 

 fmall indentation, refembling the teeth of a faw. But notwithftanding the external re- 

 femblance, the head when dilTefted refembles that of other quadrupeds, but with this re- 

 markable anomalyj that the two intermaxillary bones have an interval between them, 

 which is filled only by cartilages. A great number of nerves, proceeding from the fifth 

 pair, are diftributed to the beak, and afford the animal all the fenfibility neceffary to feek 

 its proper food at the bottom of the waters it inhabits. 



This creature, from the form of its body, the Ihortnefs of its feet, and the membranes 

 which unite its toes, is in fome degree analogous to the porcupine ant-eater, myrmecophaga 

 aculeata of Shaw, Natur. Mifcell. No. 36. Echidna Cuv. tab. Zool. But it differs confi- 

 dcrably from it in the form of its mouth, and the nature of its integuments. It is proper 

 to obferve, that the family of toothlefs animals, of which few fpecies were known in the 

 old world, is- found to have feveral rcprefentatives in the vaft continent of New Holland : 

 thus alfo the clafs of didelphia may be faid to exift in only few fpecimens in America and 

 the Indies, compared to the various forms under which they are met with in this newly 

 difcovered country. - ' 



Bulletin de Sciences, An. 8. iVo. 39. 



On a new Variety of Zircon, by ClTlZEN HaOY. 



The chryftals of Zircon which have hitherto been found in Ceylon, France, and elfe-- 

 where, have been tranfported by water into their different fituations, and we had no indi^ 

 cation of their native place, nor of the fubflances which ferved them either for fupport or 

 matrix. The interefling travels which have lately been made by Citizen Laflerie into 

 Sweden and Norway, have given us the knowledge of the primitive fituations of ithis kind 

 of mineral. Amongft the objects of natural hiflory which he has collef^ed, was a granite 

 found at Fridichfwern in Norway, and compofed of red feld-fpath and amphibolite with 

 brown chryftals, known in that country by the name of Vefuvian, which name has been 

 .3. given 



