DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS 



1874 



DUEL 



lent Aylesbury, from England; the colored 

 Rouen, from France; the huge, colored Mus- 

 covy, from South America. 



Value. Duck raising has developed into a 

 profitable industry, and American poultrymen 

 realize about $7,000,000 a year from the eggs, 

 feathers and dressed meat of ducks. E.T.S. 



DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS, plat 'i pus, a 

 peculiar egg-laying water mammal, in habit 

 and appearance a seeming mixture of several 

 animals. It lives in quiet streams of Australia, 

 Tasmania and New Guinea, where large col- 



DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS 



onies usually live in pairs, . in burrows in the 

 banks of streams. The burrows are furnished 

 with two openings, one above water and one 

 below, and sometimes they extend a long dis- 

 tance into the bank. 



A duckbill's body is rather slender, about 

 twenty inches long and covered with brown, 

 water-shedding fur. Its head is small, with 

 bright eyes, and instead of a nose it has a horny 

 bill resembling that of a duck, except that the 

 nostrils are at the extreme end; so, in order to 

 breathe, the animal need only poke its bill out 

 of water. There are no external ears, but 

 through internal ears the hearing is very keen. 

 The legs are short and the feet have five clawed 

 toes each, the forefeet being webbed beyond 

 the claws to aid in swimming, the hind feet 

 being webbed but to the base of the claws. 

 The male has a sharp horny spur on the heels, 

 which he uses as a means of defense. Duck- 

 bills are very clumsy on land, but they are fine 

 swimmers and divers, getting their food of 

 snails, shellfish, insects and worms under water. 



The female lays one or more soft-shelled 

 eggs, which she hatches soon after laying. The 

 young, which are born blind and naked, are 

 then fed and cared for in much the same way 

 as the young of other mammals. Savages hunt 

 duckbills as food and for their skins. 



DUCTILITY, duktil'iti, that quality in cer- 

 tain substances, especially metals, by which 

 they can easily be drawn out into thin llnvnd 

 or wire without breaking. Gold is the most 

 ductile of metals, followed in order by silver. 

 platinum, iron, copper, aluminum, zinc, tin, lead 

 and nickel. From one grain of gold a thread 

 500 feet in length may be drawn. Platinum 

 may be drawn out into a thread only 1-30,000 

 part of an inch in thickness. To obtain this, 

 however, the platinum must be covered with 

 silver, both metals being drawn out together. 

 The silver is afterwards dissolved in nitric acid, 

 which leaves the platinum thread intact. Glass 

 is the most ductile of all materials, and when 

 heated may be drawn into a thread very much 

 finer than the threads of a spider's web. 



DUDEVANT, dud'vahN' MADAME. See 

 SAND, GEORGE. 



DU'EL, a combat between two persons 

 armed with deadly weapons. In ancient times 

 duels were frequent, and in the Middle Ages 

 "trial by combat," as it was called, was often 

 resorted to with full consent of the Church. It 

 was almost universally believed that might 

 was ri^ht, and the victor in a mortal combat 

 v.'as held to have been justified and sustained 

 by divine power. The duel became most com- 

 mon in France during the sixteenth century, 

 where within eighteen years 4,000 persons were 

 killed. In England and France strict laws 

 were enacted forbidding dueling, but the laws 

 were not rigidly enforced. Public opinion, 

 once aroused, proved more powerful than the 

 laws, and dueling fell into disrepute and was 

 finally abandoned. 



The most deadly of all duels were those 

 fought in the United States. According to the 

 code of honor prevailing in the eighteenth and 

 the early part of the nineteenth centuries, 

 quarrels could be settled and insults avenged 

 only by combat. A very rigid code of etiquette 

 was upheld, but the duel was fought with the 

 distinct purpose of killing, and not merely 

 wounding, as was usually the case in Europe. 

 The challenged party was given the choice of 

 weapons. In France and England the sword 

 was the favorite dueling weapon; in America 

 pistols were generally used. Charles Lee 

 fought a duel with John Laurens; Aaron Burr 

 and Alexander Hamilton met on the "field of 

 honor," from which Burr fled branded as a 

 murderer. It was not uncommon for both 

 combatants to be seriously wounded, and some- 

 times both lay dead as the result of mistaken 

 honor. Dueling was prohibited by law in the 



