﻿^32 ALLEN S NATURALLSTS LIBRARY. 



Characters. — Male markedly larger than female ; fur of two 

 kinds, the longer crisp, shining, and sometimes curly, 

 and the under-fur short, soft, and woolly. General colour 

 deep umber, or blackish-brown, tending in some specimens 

 more to red and in others to black ; covering of beak black 

 above, and yellow and black beneath ; a white or yellowish 

 ring surrounding each eye ; under-parts dirty greyish-white ; 

 with the hairs grey at the base and white at the tip ; not un- 

 frequently patches of dull chestnut on the chin, round the 

 insertions of the limbs, and along the middle of the hinder 

 portion of the under surface of the body. Tail coloured above 

 like the back, generally naked inferiorly in the adult, but if 

 hairy, whiter than the under-parts. Length of head and body 

 of male about i8 inches ; of tail 6 inches ; the head and body 

 in the femile being about 4, and the tail 2 inches shorter. 



It will be generally found in descriptions of the Duck-bill, 

 Duck-Mole, or Water-Mole, as the animal is indifferently called, 

 that the covering of the beak is stated to be of a horny or 

 leathery nature. According to recent observations, however, 

 this is not the case in the living animal, in which the muzzle 

 is covered with a soft skin, comparable to that investing the 

 nose of a Dog, and richly supplied with tactile nerves ; such a 

 structure being admirably adapted for the needs of a creature 

 which is in the habit of raking and grovelling in the soft mud 

 at the bottom of rivers in search of the small molluscs, insects, 

 larvae, and worms, which constitute its food. The snout is 

 supported by a cartilage, which is believed to be a remnant of 

 the primitive one upon which the bones were subsequently 

 developed. 



In the adult Duck-bill, in which the extremities of the 

 muzzle are curiously expanded and flattened in a spatulate-like 

 form, there are two pairs of horny plates, or cornules, of which 

 the front ones are the most prominent and specialised. These 



