AUSTRALIA 147 
previous ones, and I tried keeping it in a box of dry hay until its 
feeding times at dusk and dawn, and then lifting it out and put- 
ting it into a shallow tank of water to feed on earthworms. When 
it had had enough of this I dried it in a towel and put it back in 
the sleeping box. I had slight hopes of this one surviving as it 
seemed quite contented, but the problem now was to find enough 
earthworms for the voyage home. It was hard enough to feed it 
from day to day with earthworms at hand, for I found that what 
I dug up in an hour the platypus would eat in a few minutes. 
Until then I never realized the magnitude of the problem. I ap- 
proached various gardeners with the idea of buying worms in 
quantity from them, I advertised in the local press, and visited the 
local unemployment bureau offering to employ anyone at a reason- 
able wage to dig for worms, but without success. “Down under” it 
seems there is a code of honor which prevents even a down-and- 
out from seeking the wily earthworm for monetary gain. 
The platypus is certainly a specialized feeder, for with the idea 
of getting a satisfactory food supply for the voyage home I tried 
him with chopped scallops and many kinds of smaller shellfish, 
but he showed not the slightest interest. As he is reputed to eat 
a certain amount of fresh-water shrimps, I inquired among local 
fishermen for a supply of anything up to a hundredweight dried, 
but not a single shrimp came my way. 
At last one man was found who was prepared to dig for worms. 
I was told that periodically he went off his head, so came to the 
conclusion that this must be one of his periods! Anyway he dug 
and dug and finally produced a quantity of worms which I esti- 
mated would last about a fortnight. 
As it was getting near my time to leave for home on the Mon- 
golia, which by now had done the round trip to England and back, 
I wrote to Adelaide and Fremantle to try to get an extra supply 
for the voyage, and also cabled Bombay, another port-of-call, in 
the hope of enrolling some of India’s teeming millions to hunt for 
earthworms. 
At this stage we will jump back to the day when this particular 
platypus was brought to me, for it was both eventful and painful 
and, to some people, probably of interest. 
