THE DUCKBILLED PLATYPUS 221 



frequenting broad deep rivers which flow slowly, 

 and are well-grown with water plants ; from twenty 

 to eighty individuals may occur in a single pool. 

 This quaint beast resembles a duck even in its food. 

 It lives on worms and insects, and is very destructive 

 to salmon spawn ; its diet also includes a hardshelled 

 mussel (Corbicula nepeanensis). The food is first 

 grubbed up and stored monkey-fashion in the large 

 cheek-pouches ; the animal then rests from its 

 labours, drifting on the surface like a black bottle, 

 with head and beak held vertically, and chewing and 

 swallowing the supplies it has already obtained. 

 The duckbill then paddles along for a few moments, 

 using the fore paws almost entirely ; then dives once 

 more to dig fresh dainties out of the mud. These 

 animals are almost entirely aquatic and are strong 

 swimmers ; the pictures in popular natural histories 

 give quite a false impression of their habits. They 

 merely leave the water to retire to their sleeping 

 appartments by a submerged entrance, and to figure 

 them as creeping about the herbage like a watervole 

 is absurdly inaccurate. 



The burrows of the duckbill are constructed in 

 the banks of streams. There is a land entrance 

 which is little used and also a water entrance, the 

 two passages uniting into a terminal tunnel, at the 

 end of which the sleeping compartment is situated. 

 This terminal portion is smooth, from twenty to 

 fifty feet long, and runs obliquely upwards ; oval in 



