DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



draws it back covered with these insects, which 

 become fixed to it by means of the viscous matter 

 with which it is wetted. The largest of these 

 species, all of which are originally from America , 

 is the mj'rmecophaga j ubata ( i ) . By the side of 

 the ant-eaters is the orycteropus, vulgarly called 

 ground-hog, because it lives in holes which it 

 hollows with great facility. In the bottom of 

 this case we see the two-horned rhinoceros of 

 Africa, the American tapir, and another species of 

 the same genus, sent from Malacca by MM. Diard 

 and Duvaucel. 



In the second case are two genera of quadru- 

 peds, differing in several respects from all others : 

 these are the ornithorynchus , the large flattened 

 muzzle of which much resembles the bill of a 

 duck ; and the echidna, which has a long muzzle, 

 terminated by a small mouth like that of the ant- 

 eater, and the body covered with spines like 

 those of the hedge-hog. These animals have hi- 

 therto been found only in the rivers and marshes 

 of New Holland, near Port Jackson. (2) 



(1) The female brings but one young at a birth, which she carries on 

 her back. 



(2) M. Blumenback having made known, in 1800, the first of these 

 animals under the name of ornithorynchus paradoocus, and sir Everard 

 Home having since described the echidna, M. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire 

 formed of these two genera a separate order, which he named 

 monoircma. This professor, having re-examined them, is of opinion, 

 that they ought to form an intermediate class between the mammalia 



