EDENTATA. 140 



a small mouth, contains an extensible tongue similar to that of the Ant- 

 Eaters and Pangolins, and like these, they feed on Ants. They have no 

 teeth, but their palate is furnished with several rows of small recurved 

 spines. Their short feet have each five very long and stout nails fitted 

 for digging; and the whole upper surface of the body is covered with 

 spines like that of tlie Hedgehog. It appears, that when in danger, they 

 also possess the faculty of rolling themselves into a ball. Their tail is 

 very short; their stomach ample and almost globular, and their caecum 

 moderate; the penis is terminated by four tubercles. There are two 

 species. 



E. liystrix; Ornithorhynchus hystrix, Home; Myrmeeopliaga 



aculeata, Shaw. (The Spiny Echidna). Completely covered with 



large spines. 



E. setosa ; Ornithor. setosus, Home. (The Bristly Echidna). 



Is covered with liair, among which the spines are half hidden. 



Some naturalists consider it as a mere variety from age. 



Ormthorhynciius, Bhimcmh. — Platypus, Shaw. 



The elongated, and at the same time singularly enlarged and flattened 

 muzzle of the Ornithorhynchi presents the closest external resemblance 

 to the bill of a duck, and the more so as its edges are similarly furnished 

 with a small transverse laminae. They have no teeth except at the bot- 

 tom of the mouth, where there are two throughout, without roots, with 

 flat crowns, and composed like those of the Orycteropus, of little vertical 

 tubes. There is a membrane to the fore feet, which not only unites the 

 toes, but extends far beyond the nails ; in the hind feet the membrane 

 terminates at the root of the nails; two characters, which, with the flat- 

 tened tail, make them aquatic animals. Their tongue is in a manner 

 double : one in the bill bristled with villosities ; and a second on the base 

 of the first, which is thicker, and furnished anteriorly with two little 

 fleshy points. The stomach is small, oblong, and has the pylorus near 

 the cardia. The caecum is small ; and many salient and parallel laminae 

 are visible in the intestines. The penis has only two tubercles. The 

 Ornithorhynchi inhabit the rivers and marshes of New Holland, in the 

 neighbourhood of Port Jackson. 



Two species only are known, one with smooth, thin, reddish fur, 

 the Ornithorhyncus paradoxus (a), Blumemb., and the other with 

 blackish-brown, flat and frizzled hair. Probably these are only 

 varieties of age. Voy. de Peron, I. pi. xxxiv. 



|^° {a) The problem which is here alhuled to remains up to the present time 

 unsolved; at least, the state of the controversy is this — that whilst several naturalists, 

 those who examined the animal formerly, and in our own day, agree that it belongs 

 to the Mammalia, it is contended by one, the most experienced of them all, we al- 

 lude to Geoffroy St. Hilaire, that tliere is nothing in its anatomy to justify such a 

 decision. The very recent investigations of Mr. Richard Owen, of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, have led him to bear testimony to the existence of the milk glands 

 for supporting the young. In live instances he has seen tliese glands under different 

 degrees of development, and describes an areola on the external surface of the skin 

 on the glands, consisting of minute orifices, from which, in one instance, he was 

 able by pressure to extract drops of oil, and which he found by injection to be con- 

 tumous with minute passages through the lobules constituting the gland. The 



