248 Mr. Scott on the Ornithorhynchus Paradorus. 
The animal was very lively, and I put it into a large tub of 
water, and fastened a string to its hind leg, that it might not 
escape in the night; this caused an inflammation, and the next 
morning it died. 
I watched its motions during the whole of the of Seorier and 
questioned the native black, (through the medium of another who 
spoke English remarkably well,) as to its haunts and habits, and 
the following are my observations and his account. 
It was extremely lively, and would attempt to bite when touched, 
but did not hurt. 
The beak is soft and slimy ; it dives down and rises again im- 
mediately, shaking its head and bill like a duck ; it runs, or rather 
crawls, one foot before the other on the ground, somewhat fast; 
its excrement is soft and brown like that of a bird; it scratches its 
head and neck with its hind foot like a dog; its eye is very round, 
but the socket is oblong; the colour of the irisa dark brown, the 
pupil very minute and blue, rather a prussian blue; it breathes 
through one nostril, apparently, as if the water came from one 
only. In the evening it became rather more lively, but died the 
following morning, when Mr. Hill, a surgeon of the Royal Navy, 
who was with us, opened and dissected it, and wrote me a letter, 
which I have added to this account. 
From Cook-a-Gong, chief of the Burrah-Burrah tribe, our 
guide, I learnt that this animal had just finished building her nest, 
which has a long niche or tube to creep into, and which leads to a 
round hollow, the whole lined with reeds and moss. 
It is built amongst reeds in still water*; it lays two eggs at a 
time, their colour white, and their size that of a small sized hen’s 
* A few days afterwards I passed through this lagoon, and rode up to the 
nest, the waters being above my horse’s knees. I founda large mass of reeds 
scratched and twisted together on the stump or root of one of the reeds ; the 
canal had been nearly destroyed in getting the animal out, but the large 
hollow lined with moss was perfect, and appeared moist. She sat with her 
bill about an inch or two above the water for air; this in several other places, 
during a six weeks’ tour in the interior, I found to be inyariably the case in 
rivers, and the most usual mode of discovering them, which, in general, was 
difficult, for they are very quick-sighted and hy, 
