236 LLOYD’S NATURAL HISTORY. 
the long grass, displayed the entrance of the burrow, distant 
rather more than a foot from the water’s edge. In digging up 
this retreat, the natives had not laid it entirely open, but had 
delved holes at certain distances, always introducing a stick 
for the purpose of ascertaining the direction in which the bur- 
row ran, previously to again digging down upon it. By this 
method they were able to explore its whole extent with less 
labour than if it had been entirely laid open. The termination 
of the burrow was broader than any other part, nearly oval in 
form ; and the bottom was strewn with dry river-weeds, &c., a 
quantity of which still remained. From this place my sable 
friend said he had taken last season three young ones, which 
were about six or eight inches long, and covered with hair. 
The whole of the burrow was smooth, extending about twenty 
feet in a serpentine direction up the bank. . . . The bur- 
rows have two entrances—one usually at about the distance of 
a foot from the water’s edge, and another under the water. It 
is, no doubt, by the entrance under the water that the animal 
seeks refuge within its burrow, when it is seen to dive and not 
to rise again ; and when the poor hunted quadruped is unable 
to enter or escape from the burrow by the upper aperture, it 
has recourse to the river-entrance.” 
As a tule, the burrows of the Duck-bills are situated above 
the usual level of the river, but do not appear to be out of the 
reach ef the floods which are so common during the winter. 
At the breeding season the terminal chamber of the burrow is 
lined with a layer of dried grass and weeds, upon which the 
white eggs, usually two in number, are deposited. Here the 
eggs are hatched out by the female parent brooding upon them 
after the manner of a bird ; the pouch on the under surface of 
her body being never sufficiently large to contain the eggs. 
After their emergence from the shell the naked and helpless 
young are nourished by their parent in the manner already 
