81 



of sand on one half of the bottom ; the top covered with close cross- 

 bars. The animal raanifested more vivacity than might have been 

 expected from a ąuadruped which, in the proportions of its limbs to 

 the body, as we]l as in its internal organization, makes the nearest 

 approach, after the Ornithorhynchus, to the Reptilia. In the act of 

 walking, which was a kind of waddling gait, the body was alternately 

 bent from one side to the other, the belly was lifted entirely off the 

 ground, and the legs, though not so perpendicular as in higher mam- 

 mals, were less bent outwards than in Lizards. The broad and short 

 fore-paws were turned rather inwards ; the hind-feet had their claws 

 bent outwards and backwards, resting on the inner border of the sole 

 The animal was a malė, and the taršai spur, smaller and sharper than 

 in the Ornithorhynchus. projected backwards and outwards, almost 

 hidden by the surrounding coarse and close hair. The small eyes 

 gleamed clear and dark ; the ball was sensibly retracted when the 

 animal winked. which it did freąuently. It commenced an active ex- 

 ploration of its prison soon after it was encaged : the first instinctive 

 action was to seek its ordinary shelter in the earth, and it turned up 

 the sand rapidly by throwing it aside with strong strokes of its 

 powerful fossonal paws, and repeating the act in manv places. until 

 lt had assured itself that the šame hard impenetrable bottom every- 

 where opposed its progress downwards. The animal then began to 

 explore every fissure and cranny, poking its long and slender nose 

 into each crevice and hole, and through the interspaces of the cross- 

 bars above. To reach these it had to raiše itself almost upright. and 

 often overbalanced itself, falling on its back, and recovering its \e<^s 

 by performing a summerset. I watched these attempts of the animal 

 to |scape for more than an hour, and it was not until it had got ex- 

 perience of the strength of its prison, that the Echidna began to 

 notice the food which had been placed there. 



This consisted of a saucer of bread and milk and some raeal- 

 worms. The milk was sucked or rather licked in by rapid protrusion 

 and retraction of the long red cylindrical tongue. The tongue came 

 more than once in contact with the larvse, which were sometimes 

 rolled over by it, but no attempt was made to swallow them. 



The moist dark end of the nose felt cold to the touch. The tem- 

 perature of the animal at the cloaca was 85° Fahr., or nearly ten 

 degrees lower than that of the anus of a rabbit. 



The Echidna oiFered little resistance when seized by the hind-leg 

 and lifted ofF the ground, and made not the slightest demonstration 

 ot defendmg himself by striking with his hind spurs : the only action 

 when irntated was to roll itself into a ball, likę a hedgehog— the 

 bristles bemg then erect. This was the position chosen for sleep • 

 but our Echidna showed little of that sluggishness which the French 

 naturalists ascribe to their live specimen on ship-board (Vovaffe de 

 la Favorite, p. 159). \ } s 



Fhe blood-discs manifested the true mammalian type in their num- 

 ber size and form : they were flat, circular, averaging ^'^ih of an 

 inch diameter ; a few large ones were rather lcss than WWth • the 

 smailest was y^^th. ^°°^ 



