240 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



obtained durin^^ their long voyage a live echidna, 

 above-mentioned. Apathetic and perhaps in a 

 state of semi-aestivation (or sea-sick!) it refused food 

 for a month; at last, they induced it to eat a dubious 

 mixture of sugared flour moistened with water. 

 One fears that the poor echidna was not long 

 for this world ! Lieutenant Breton once took a 

 live specimen in that echidna metropolis — the Blue 

 Mountains — and managed to feed it on scientific 

 lines. Having given it ants' eggs mixed with milk 

 while on shore, when the ship sailed he succeeded in 

 getting it to take a mixed diet of egg, liver, and 

 chopped meat — a routine menu hardly to be improved 

 on at the present day, even in the best zoological 

 gardens. The Lieutenant was hoping to bring his 

 pet safely home, but unfortunately the eggs on which 

 he conscientiously fed it being very bad, the 

 animal died suddenly off Cape Horn. Dr. Gray's 

 catalogue of the mammals in the British Museum, 

 published in 1843, contains an entry of an echidna 

 "presented by Lieutenant Breton"; no doubt this 

 was the same specimen which, though dead, its 

 owner determined should not be wasted. The 

 Lieutenant wrote to the Zoological Society, and in 

 his letter, read at a meeting on March 25, 1834, 

 gave some sensible instructions to any desirous of 

 bringing over a live echidna. This interesting event 

 occured in 1846, when the first living example ever 

 seen in England was received at the Zoological 



