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the ground ; that the culour of the upper mandihle ubove, in aii 

 animal recently taken ovit ot" tlie water, is of a dull dirty greyish 

 black covered with innumerable minute dots, and the under suiiace 

 of the lower \vhite in the younger specimens, and mottled in the 

 more aged, -vvhile the inncr surface of both is of a pale pink or flesli 

 colour ; that the eyes are brilliant, and light bro\vn ; and that the 

 external orifices of the ears, \vhich are \vith difficulty detected in 

 dead specimens, are easily discoverable in the living, the animal ex- 

 ercising the faculty of opening and closing them at will. When 

 recent, and especially \vhen wet, the Ornithorhynchvs has a peculiar 

 fishy smell, proceeding probably from an oily secretion. It is used 

 as food by the Natives, by \vhora it is called, at Bathurst and Goul- 

 burn Plains, and in the Yas, Murrumbidgee and Tumat countries, by 

 the names of Mallangong or Tamhreet. Mr. G. Bennett is inclined to 

 regard the two species usually described in modern books as not 

 differing sufficiently from each other to justify their separation, 

 and he therefore retains the name of Orn. paradoxits given to the 

 animal by Professor Blumenbach, the universal adoption of \vhich 

 renders it inexpedient in this instance to recur to the older name 

 of Platypus imposed on it by Shaw. He remarks on the distor- 

 tions to which the exceedingly loose integuments are liable in the 

 hands of stuffers unacąuainted with the characteristic features of 

 the animal, and gives the general result of his measurements, in the 

 recent statė, of fifteen specimens shot and captured alive, as aver- 

 aging in the malęs from 1 foot 7 to 1 foot 8 inches, and in the fe- 

 males from 1 foot 6 to 1 foot 7 inches, in totai length. One malė 

 specimen, shot near the Murrumbidgee River, measured 1 foot 11+ 

 inches ; and a female, shot in the afternoon of the šame day in the 

 šame part of the river, measured only 1 foot 4 inches. In these spe- 

 cimens the relative proportions of the beak and tail \vere subject to 

 considerable variation. 



Mr. G. Bennett's observations Avere commenced on the 4th of 

 October 1832, at Mundoona in the Murray County, on a part of the 

 Yas River running through the estate of Mr. James Rose. The 

 IVater-Moles (as these animals are called by the Colonists,) chiefly 

 freąuent the open and tranquil parts of the stream, covered with 

 aąuatic plants, where the steep and shaded banks afford excellent 

 situations for the excavation of their burrovvs. Such expanses of 

 ■vvater are by the Colonists called " ponds." The animals may be 

 readily recognised by their dark bodies just seen level with the sur- 

 face, above \vhich the head is slightly raised, and by the circles made 

 in the water around them by their paddling action. On the shght- 

 est alarm they instantly disappear ; and indeed they seldom remain 

 longer on the surface than one or two minutes, but dive head fore- 

 most with an audible splash, reappearing, if not alarmed, a short 

 distance from the spot at \vhich they dived. Their action is so rapid, 

 and their sense of danger so lively, that the mere act of levelling the 

 gun is sufficient to cause their instant disappearance ; and it is con- 

 sequently only by watching them when diving, and levelling the 

 piece in a direction towards the spot at \vhich they scem likely to 



