210 



Cr&irfurg of Natural 



dicularly upwards. The snout is long and 

 j tubular, the mouth small, and the tongue 

 i long and lumbviciform, as in other Ant- 

 | eaters. The legs are very short and thick ; 



and are each furnished with five rounded, 



FORCTTPINE ECHIDNA. ^ECHIDNA HTSTRIX.) 



broad toes : on the fore feet are five very 

 strong, long, and blunt claws ; but on the 

 hind feet there are only four claws, the 

 thumb being destitute of a claw : the first 

 claw on the hind feet is extremely long, 

 rather curved, and sharp pointed ; the next 

 shorter, but of similar appearance ; the two 

 remaining ones far shorter, and blunt : it 

 has great strength, and burrows with won- 

 derful celerity. 



At a meeting of the Zoological Society, 

 July 22. 1845, Professor Owen communicated 

 his observations on the living Echidna exhi- 

 bited at the Menagerie of the Society in May 

 preceding. The animal when received at 

 the Gardens was active and apparently in 

 sound health. It was placed in a large but 

 shallow box, with a deep layer of sand on 

 one half of the bottom ; the top covered with 

 close cross-bars. The animal manifested 

 more vivacity than might have been ex- 

 pected from a quadruped which, in the pro- 

 portions of its limbs to its body, as well as in 

 its internal organization, makes the nearest 

 approach, after the Ornithorhyncus, to the 

 Reptilia. In the act of walking, which was 

 a kind of waddling gait, the body was alter- 

 nately bent from one side to the other, the 

 belly was lifted entirely off the ground, and 

 the legs, though not so perpendicular as in 

 higher mammalia, were less bent outwards 

 than in lizards. The broad and short fore 

 paws were turned rather inwards j the hind 

 feet had their claws bent outwards and back- 

 wards, resting on the inner border of the 

 sole. The animal was a male; and the tarsal 

 spur, smaller and sharper than in the Orni- 

 thorhyncus, projected backwards and out- 

 wards, almost hidden by the surrounding 

 coarse and close hair. The small eyes 

 gleamed clear and dark ; the ball was sen- 

 sibly retracted when the animal winked, 

 which it did frequently. It commenced an 

 active exploration of its prison soon after it 

 was encaged : the first instinctive action was 

 to seek its ordinary shelter in the earth, and 

 it turned up the sand rapidly by throwing it 

 aside with strong strokes of its powerful fos- 

 sorial paws, and repeating the act in many 

 places, until it had assured itself that the 

 same hard impenetrable bottom everywhere 

 opposed its progress downwards. The animal 

 then began to explore every fissure and 

 cranny, poking its long and slender nose into 

 each crevice and hole, and through the in- 

 terspaces of the cross-bars above. To reach 



these it had to raise itself almost upright, 

 and often overbalanced itself, falling on its 

 back, and recovering its legs by performing 

 a summerset. I watched these attempts of 

 the animal to escape for more than an hour, 

 and it was not till it had got experience of 

 the strength of its prison, that the Echidna 

 began to notice the foo_d which had been 

 placed there. This consisted of a saucer of 

 bread and milk and some meal-worms. The 

 milk was sucked or rather licked in by rapid 

 protrusion and retraction of the long red 

 cylindrical tongue. The tongue came more 

 than once in contact with the larvas, which 

 were sometimes rolled over by it, but no 

 attempt was made to swallow them. The 

 Echidna offered little resistance when seized 

 by the hind-leg and lifted oil" the ground, 

 and made not the slightest demonstration of 

 defending himself by striking with his hind 

 spurs : the only action when irritated was to 

 roll itself into a ball like a hedgehog the 

 bristles being then erect. Ann. Nat. Hist. 



ECHIMYS: ECHIMYNA. The name 

 of a genus and subfamily of Rodents, con- 

 taining the genus Echimys or Loncheres ; a 

 largish spiny-haired rat-like animal with a 

 long tail ; it is a native of South America. 

 The genus Octodon, an arboreal type found 

 in Chili ; and Aulacodus or Ground Pig, 

 from South Africa also belong to this sub- 

 family. 



ECHINEIS. A genus of fish remarkable 

 for a series of suckers on the top of the head. 

 [See REMORA.] 



ECHINODERMATA. The name given 

 to an extensive order of Invertebrate ani- 

 mals of the class RADIATA, comprising all 

 those which have a hard coriaceous integu- 

 ment, which in some species is covered with 

 sharp spines or prickles, like those of the 

 hedgehog ; a digestive and vascular system ; 

 and a sort of radiating nerves. They are all 

 marine animals, possessing the power of lo- 

 comotion ; the sexes are distinct ; and the 

 young are produced from ova. " In this 

 group," as Mr. Patterson observes, " we find 

 animals of extremely dissimilar appearance 

 associated together. One species is attached, 

 for a certain period, to a stem, and. resembles 

 a polype, with its waving and sensitive arms. 

 In the common star-fish, or ' five-fingers,' 

 we have the arms radiating from a common 

 centre. In the sea-urchius there are no 

 arms, and the form of the body is globular, 



and, passing over some intermediate gra- 

 dations of figure, we reach creatures which 

 in external aspect, resemble worms, and have 



