18 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



Platypus have not been practically demonstrated, and it would seem to be highly 

 probable that, as with many other animals, their functional import and activity are 

 intimately connected with the pairing season. The fact that wounds from these spurs 

 are difficult to heal may be explained by the circumstance that a puncture from any 

 blunt, conically pointed instrument may produce a similar effect. 



Dr. Bennett, in his work previously quoted, makes a very brief reference to that 

 near living relation of the Platypus, the Echidna or Spiny Ant-Eater, commonly, but 

 incorrectly, associated by Australian colonists with the title of the " Porcupine." The 

 single example kept by Dr. Bennett does not appear to have ingratiated itself very 

 deeply in his favour, and is finally dismissed with the sentence, " So much trouble 

 was given by its burrowing habits and spinal irritation, that its death was not regarded 

 with much regret." A couple of specimens of the Tasmanian form, Echidna aculeata 

 var. setosa, were for some months in the author's possession, and well repaid the care 

 and attention bestowed upon them. While for the first few days excessively shy, 

 presenting an impenetrable chevaux de /rise of sharp-pointed spines to all friendly 

 advances, and incorrigible burrowers in their endeavours to escape from captivity, they 

 soon showed themselves amenable to kindly influences. After a brief course of 

 domestication, they would follow their owner in the house or adjacent grounds, and 

 were quite accustomed to, and seemingly appreciated, being carried, thrown across 

 the arm, after the manner of a lap-dog. Having satisfied their hunger at an ants' 

 nest or with the artificial food, chiefly bread and milk or oatmeal, provided for them, 

 they especially delighted, when liberated in the garden, in spreading themselves out 

 at full length to bask in the sunniest spot they could find. In the house they 

 displayed an inquisitive turn of mind, peering into every crevice and climbing upon 

 and exploring every accessible article of furniture. This climbing proclivity, in point 

 of fact, occasioned the demise of one of the specimens, which, scaling and accidentally 

 falling from the back of a high chair, injured its spine to such an extent that it 

 shortly afterwards died from the effects. 



An adjacent piece of uncultivated bush-land that abounded in ants' nests 

 proved a most happy hunting-ground for the two Echidna?, which, as recognised 

 members of the family circle, rejoiced in the respective sobriquets of "Prickles" and 

 " Pins." The natural ant-eating propensities of the Echidna do not appear, so far, to 

 have been precisely defined. As clearly demonstrated by observations and experiments 

 made with the examples in the author's possession, adult ants, pure and simple, do not 

 constitute its normal, or even an acceptable, diet. Placed in contiguity to a teeming 



