86 THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



and lived longer than any animal of the same species Avas ever 

 known to do in this country." 



In 1845 the white-headed eagles nested. The female began 

 to sit on her eggs on April 8, and the pair were seen by hundreds 

 steadily persevering, notwithstanding the gaze of the visitors, 

 from day to day, in a close incubation till June 6, when the 

 worthless eggs were removed. The male was very attentive to 

 the female, and both took their regular turns in sitting. " Their 

 entire want of success seems, however, to have disgusted them 

 with the whole proceeding, for we cannot learn that the female 

 has produced an ep;g since." "^ 



At the Annual Meeting in that year the Council announced 

 that they had just added to the collection an echidna, or porcu- 

 pine ant-eater, " the first specimen of that animal which has been 

 exhibited alive in Europe, and one of very great interest to natu- 

 ralists." According to Owen, who watched the creature closely, 

 it was then " active and apparently in sound health " ; but it 

 only lived a few weeks. 



From his paper presented to the scientific meeting of July 22 

 we learn that the animal was placed in a large shallow box having 

 a deep layer of sand on one half the bottom, and the top covered 

 with crossbars. It manifested more vivacity than could have 

 been expected from a quadruped which, in the proportions of its 

 limbs to the body, as well as in its internal organisation, makes 

 the nearest approach, after the ornithorhynchus, to the Reptilia- 

 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 fossorial 

 paws, repeating the act in many places, until it had assured itself 

 that the same hard, impenetrable bottom everywhere opposed its 

 progress downwards. Then it explored every fissure and cranny, 

 and poked its long slender nose through the interspaces of the 

 crossbars 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 somersault. 



When seized by the hind leg and lifted off the ground the 

 echidna offered but little resistance, and " made not the slightest 



♦Broderip, "Note-book of a Naturalist," p. 93. 



