232 LLOYD’S NATURAL HISTORY. 
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 18 inches ; of tail 6 inches ; the head and body 
in the female 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, 
larve, 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 
wil 
