Zoological Society. 127 
of sand.on one half of the bottom; the top covered with close cross- 
. bars... The animal manifested more vivacity than might have been 
-expected from a quadruped which, in the proportions of its limbs to 
~ the body,.as.well:as in its internal organization, makes the nearest 
_ approach, after the Ornithorhynchus, to the Reptilia. In the act of 
walking, which was a kind of waddling gait, the body was alternately 
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 mam- 
mals, were less bent outwards than in Lizards. ‘The broad and short 
fore-paws were turned rather inwards ; the hind-feet had their claws 
-bent outwards and backwards, resting on the inner border of the sole. 
~The animal was a male, and the tarsal spur, smaller and sharper than 
in the Ornithorhynchus, projected backwards and outwards, almost 
. hidden. by the surrounding coarse and close hair. The small eyes 
-gleamed clear and dark; the ball was sensibly retracted when the 
animal winked, which it did frequently. It commenced an active ex- 
ploration of its prison soon after it was encaged : the first mstinctive 
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, and repeating the act in many places, until 
it had assured itself that the same hard impenetrable bottom every- 
‘where 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 interspaces 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 until it had got ex- 
perience of the strength of its prison, that the Echidna began to 
notice the food 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 larve, which were sometimes 
rolled over by it, but no attempt was made to swallow them. 
‘The moist dark end of the nose felt cold to the touch. The tem- 
perature of the animal at the cloaca was 85° Fahr., or nearly ten 
degrees lower than that of the anus of a rabbit. 
The Echidna offered little resistance when seized by the hind-leg 
and lifted off 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. This was the position chosen for sleep ; 
but our Echidna showed little of that sluggishness which the French 
naturalists ascribe to their live specimen on ship-board (Voyage de 
la Favorite, p. 159). 
-». The blood-discs manifested the true mammalian type in their num- 
ber, size and form: they were flat, circular, averaging ;,!,,th of an 
inch diameter ; a few large ones were rather less than ,,J,,th; the 
smallest, was z,);,th. 
