THE ORNITHORHYNCHUS PARADOXUS. 237 
of the current, and it is generally done effectively. I recollect, however, seeing two 
making repeated and ineffectual attempts to pass a small waterfall during a rapid 
current of the river, and after many persevering efforts they were unable to attain their 
object. 
The opinion that I had heard advanced at Sidney, of its being requisite to shoot the 
Water-Moles dead instantly, otherwise they would sink and not reappear, I did not find 
to be correct in practice. If missed, indeed, this is likely to occur ; but if the animal 
is wounded, it immediately sinks, but soon reappears on the surface of the water some 
distance beyond the place at which it was seen to dive. Some require two or three 
shots before they are killed or so severely wounded as to enable them to be brought 
out of the water; and they frequently evade being captured, even when wounded, by 
frequent and rapid diving. Sometimes too, unless the sportsman is very vigilant, they 
may come up among the reeds and rushes, which are plentiful in some parts, extending 
out from the banks of the river, and thus escape observation altogether. I have no 
doubt, also, that some which sink after being wounded, escape into their burrows ; as 
even when they cannot reach the bank, they may get access to the hole by the sub- 
aqueous entrance. 
On the evening of the day on which the first specimen was shot, we were fortu- 
nate in procuring a female. It was twice seen paddling about on the water, diving 
and then rising again, but not sufficiently near to allow of its being fired at; the third 
time it dived, rising within good aim, it was shot. On being taken out of the water it 
bled from the mouth, and it was found that the shot had struck it about the base and 
on other parts of the mandibles ; it died almost immediately. The only indications of 
vitality which it gave consisted of a gasping motion of the mandibles and a convulsive 
action of the hind feet, as when the animal combs the sides of the abdomen with the 
claws of the hind feet. This specimen differed from the last in the abdomen being of a 
much darker ferruginous colour ; but from subsequent observations of numerous spe- 
cimens, I find these differences to depend merely on the age of the animal. In this 
individual the web of the fore feet was entirely black, but in many it is found mottled ; 
the under mandible was nearly white, the upper of the usual colour. There was no 
spur on the hind foot, but on the situation of it in the male, the female had a small 
impervious depression, which it is not improbable may serve for the reception of the 
spur of the male. 
I felt great delight at having procured a female specimen, as I had some expecta- 
tion of being able thereby to ascertain the mode of procreation in this most extraordi- 
nary quadruped. At all events I expected to determine whether this was or was not 
the commencement of the breeding-season among them. My attention was immediately 
directed to the abdominal or mammary gland, and on laying aside the abdominal in- 
teguments and examining its situation, I was at first rather surprised to observe scarcely 
any appearance of it. On reflection, however, it occurred to me (a supposition which 
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