THE MULLINGONG. 



273 



fore-feet are employed for digging as well as for swimming, and are 

 therefore armed with powerful claws rather more than half an inch in 

 length, and rounded at their extremities. With such force can these 

 natural tools be used that the Duck-bill has been seen to make a bur- 

 row two feet in length through hard gravelly soil in the space of ten 

 minutes. While digging the animal employs its beak as well as its feet, 

 and the webbed membrane contracts between the joints so as not to be 

 seen. The hind-feet of the male are furnished with a spur, about an 

 inch in length, curved, perforated, and connected with a gland situated 

 near the ankle. It was once supposed that this spur conveyed a poison- 



■!6^t-J^ 



The Duck-bill or Mvliasgosg {Pl<(typiis Ayiatinus). 



ous liquid into the wound which it made, but this opinion has been dis- 

 proved by Dr. Bennett, who frequently permitted, and even forced, the 

 animal to wound him with its spurs, and experienced no ill-consequences 

 beyond the actual wound. The animal has the power of folding back 

 the spur so as to conceal it entirely, and is then sometimes mistaken for 

 a female. 



The color of the adult animal is a soft dark brown, interspersed with 

 a number of glistening points which are produced by the long and shin- 

 ing hairs which protrude through the inner fur. 



