GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS 1559 



to a totally distinct division of the animal world. 

 The platypus frequents the margins of creeks and 

 pools, but remains mostly in the water, and is only 

 approached with difficulty, on account of its extreme 

 shyness. It has a coating of soft fur, variously shaded 

 from black to silver-gray. 



Australia is distinguished by an extreme paucity 

 of animal life (in so far as land animals are con- 

 cerned), in even a higher degree than by the limited 

 number of its native species. This is readily ex- 

 plained by the generally arid character of its in- 

 terior, the scantiness of the native vegetation, and the 

 consequent difficulty of rinding food. The traveler 

 may frequently pass over many hundred miles of 

 country without meeting with a single quadruped, 

 and almost without finding the traces of a single 

 land animal. Its characteristics in the latter regard 

 are undergoing, however, a rapid change: the horse 

 and the ox, introduced by the European settlers, have 

 in some cases reverted to a state of nature, and a herd 

 of wild cattle is now not infrequently met with be- 

 yond the ordinary limits of the settlers' range. 



The ornithology of Australia is richer and more 

 varied than other branches of its animal life. Its 

 chief distinction consists in the vast proportion of 

 suctorial birds that is, such birds as derive their 

 principal support from sucking the nectar of flowers. 

 This peculiar organization, restricted in Africa, 

 India, and America to the smallest birds in creation, 

 is here developed very generally, and belongs to spe- 

 cies that are as large as an English thrush. The 

 melliphagids, or honey-suckers, take the place of the 



