=46 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
line. In the evening it leaves its burrow in search of food, which 
is mainly earthworms, of which it will consume enormous quan- 
tities. It is an excellent swimmer and uses its duck-like bill very 
much as does a waterfowl. When not feeding in water the platypus 
likes to be in a dry warm place, and this, with its peculiar feeding 
habits, is one of the problems when trying to keep it in close 
confinement. An even greater problem is the animal’s tempera- 
ment. It has a low mentality—I should say almost reptilian—and 
in captivity will not tolerate any conditions or circumstances that 
are not entirely suited to it. In fact, it has the ability to die almost 
immediately when it decides that it has been completely frus- 
trated. Naturally individuals vary in their adaptability to captive 
conditions, but the young are no easier than adults. Under semi- 
captive conditions such as in a pond in one’s garden, a platypus 
will thrive, and such a specimen would obviously stand more 
chance of survival when introduced to a traveling box than a 
newly caught specimen. 
The only success in the transportation of the platypus has been 
to America, in which case the collector constructed an elaborate 
and costly traveling cage with winding tunnels lined with rubber 
squeegees leading from the feeding tank to the sleeping box. 
In these days of air travel the situation has changed entirely; 
for one thing, the problem of supplying live earthworms for any- 
thing up to six weeks during transit does not now arise. 
In my own case, being on a short visit I had little time to ex- 
periment with these animals, especially as I was fully occupied 
with a large collection of other things. Anyway, I made a number 
of traveling boxes of simple construction, providing a tank and 
sleeping quarters, and some temporary boxes without a tank, so 
that the creatures would not get too wet the first night or two in 
their efforts to find a way out. Although quiet enough during the 
day, when nightfall approached the restless creatures would make 
stubborn efforts to scratch through the wooden boxes, and would 
die in doing this the first or second night. This is all the more 
remarkable for, as a rule, they are not very nervous and not at all 
upset when handled. 
A later specimen I had was much more promising than the 
