378 



ECHEVERIA ECHIDNA. 



as the quantify of flesh on them is but small, and the 

 quality inferior, and in addition we may remark that 

 it' a fish has any thing very peculiar about it, that 

 arms the superstition of dislike, such a fish is apt to 

 be loathed, without any very reasonable cause. 



E.rcmora is the species which has been longest 

 known ; it is found abundantly in the Mediterranean, 

 and is most celebrated for stopping ships in their 

 course, and doing other great feats. It is a trifling 

 fish, not above five or six inches in length, and of an 

 ash colour. It is found occasionally in other seas. 



E. naucrates is a much larger species, often attain- 

 ing the length of two feet and a half or three feet. Its 

 back and tail are variously marked with greenish tints, 

 and its sides with brown. Its fins are yellowish with 

 brown borders. 



E. lunata is about the same size, but it has the 

 dorsal fin very long and sometimes obliterated iu the 

 middle, and the caudal fin forked. It is black on the 

 back, and grey on the sides. It is a native of the 

 West Indian seas. 



ECHEVERIA (Decandolle). A genus of succu- 

 lent under-shrubs, natives of Mexico. They are de- 

 candrious, andtbelong to the natural order CrassulacecE. 

 Some of the species have handsome flowers, and are 

 very hardy greenhouse plants. They succeed in the 

 same kind of dry soil like other succulents ; and no 

 plant is easier propagated, for if the upper leaves only 

 are laid on the surface of a pot of earth, they put 

 forth fibres and become perfect plants. 



ECHIDNA. A very singular genus of marsupial 

 mammalia, forming, along with Ornithorhynchus, a 

 group which Cuvier has placed in the order Edentata, 

 or toothless animals ; but of which both the structure 

 and the habits are so peculiar that they do not come 

 very well into this, or indeed into any other part of a 

 system founded on the organisation. In the English 

 books the genus under consideration is confounded 

 with ornithorhynchus, under the name of hystrir, or 

 hedgehog ornithorhynchus ; but both the structure and 

 the habits forbid this union. The ornithorhynchus is 

 a web-footed animal, inhabiting only the waters, and. 

 from the structure of its mandibles, apparently dabbling 

 in the mud, and feeding upon the small animals which 

 that contains, in the same manner as the dabbling 

 ducks, though it is mucn more a diving animal than 

 any of the duck family, or than any other of the mam- 

 malia which find their food in the waters,and have at 

 the same time the four extremities so much produced, 

 and free of their body as to be entitled to the name 

 of legs. The Echidna, on the other hand, are not 

 aquatic ; and, though they have the mandibles or jaws 

 produced, and formed of a horny substance, without 

 any teeth except small ones on the palate, they do not 

 frequent the waters, neither are their bills, as they may 

 without any impropriety be called, at all adapted for 

 dabbling in the mud. Their tongues are extensile to 

 a considerable distance beyond the extremity of the 

 mandibles ; and, therefore, the natural conclusion is, 

 that they are insectivorous. Very little is known of 

 their habits, however, for they do not appear to be 

 very numerous, and they burrow so rapidly in the 

 ground, that even when one is discovered, it is not 

 very easily got hold of. The back, and upper part 

 generally, is so thickly beset with spines, and those 

 spines are so sharp, that, though the animal is not 

 larger than the common hedgehog, it cannot be lifted 

 with impunity ; and, indeed, the lifting of it requires 

 more force than would be expected from its size, as it 



is firmly fixed to the ground in an instant, and but a 

 few moments elapse, before it is so far down that its 

 back is level with the surface. For a long time tlu-si- 

 animals, the few that were obtained, were procured 

 in their native country, Australia, either from the 

 natives, or by other collectors of curiosities equally 

 ignorant, or, at all events, equally inattentive to any 

 other consideration than that of obtaining the curious 

 animal and getting a price for it; so that nothing was 

 known of the habits, or of that change of structure to 

 which it has since been found that the female is sub- 

 ject in the course of propagation. The researches of 

 more scientific and observant inquirers have, in later 

 times, removed the greater part, of the difficulty ; and 

 it is now ascertained that the animals of this, as well 

 as those of the aquatic genus, are true mammalia, 

 suckling their voung, though the mammary system is 

 more peculiar in them than in any other of the mar- 

 supialia, singular as some of these are. 



In consequence of there not being any appearance 

 of mammary glands on the female, and no account 

 having arrived as to the fact of those glands being 

 developed only when the state of the animal requires 

 them, and absorbed when no longer necessary, it 

 became impossible for even the most skilful and 

 judicious comparative anatomists to determine, from 

 dissection of the few specimens which they obtained, 

 whether the animals were mammalia or oviparous 

 and as such forming part of a mongrel, or at all events 

 peculiar race, to which nothing analogous was known, 

 in any other part of the world, or in any other depart- 

 ment of zoology. The female being wholly without 

 teats, there being only one common cloaca, or vent, 

 as in birds, and some parts of the skeleton having an 

 approximation to the bird structure, it was perhaps 

 not unnatural to conclude that the animals were repro- 

 duced by eggs. This was farther rendered, if not 

 more probable, at least more tempting to the belief by- 

 announcements that the eggs of the ornithorhynchus 

 had been found on the banks of some of the Australian 

 rivers. It was natural, when the mode of reproduc- 

 tion in these animals had become a subject of great 

 interest to naturalists all over Europe, and when, in 

 consequence, there was a great and profitable demand 

 for the animals themselves it was natural that there 

 should be a strong desire on the part of collectors to 

 find the eggs, because the finding of these would have 

 covered the finder with the glory of having been the 

 means of establishing the most anomalous fact in the 

 whole physiology of the animal kingdom. Accordingly 

 an ornithorhynchus was seen escaping into the water, 

 from a little bank in an Australian river, and presently 

 the eggs of a lizard were found close by, and thus 

 there was at least the evidence of juxtaposition that 

 these were the veritable eggs of the ornithorhynclms. 

 The finder probably could not, and the naturalists to 

 whom the eggs were submitted in Europe at all events 

 did not, institute any inquiry as to what kind of in- 

 teguments these eggs really had, and what kind the 

 anomalous animals should have,in accordance with the 

 other parts of their singular physiology. Latterly, 

 indeed, some of the British naturalists threw out a 

 hint that the eggs in question were very like the eggs 

 of lizards, or of reptiles of some kind ; but it docs not 

 appear that they examined them with so much atten- 

 tion as to enable them to decide the truth of the hint. 

 This is rather a matter of importance ; because it 

 hows the necessity of attending to the structure of 

 an animal in all its stages, the egg among the rest, if 



