200 MONOTREMATOUS WATER TRESPASSERS. 



" A near shot is requisite, a distant one being 

 almost hopeless ; and the aim should be invariably 

 directed afc the head, in which part the shots are more 

 likely to take speedy effect than in the loose, dense 

 integuments of the body, which the charge is unable 

 to penetrate. I have seen the skull shattered by the 

 force of the shot, when the integuments covering it 

 have scarcely suffered injury. 



" If the water is very clear, the course of the 

 animal beneath its surface after diving can be dis- 

 tinctly seen; but as the places frequented by it 

 usually abound in river-weeds, it is seldom noticed in 

 a clear part of the river. On diving, they never rise 

 again at the same place ; but it is not difficult, with 

 a little experience in sporting for these animals 

 to judge with tolerable accuracy where they may 

 come up." 



Aquatic as is this animal, it cannot endure a long 

 immersion ; and is in the habit of coming ashore at 

 intervals. Dr. Bennett found that if a Duckbill be 

 kept in deep water for a quarter of an hour or 

 twenty minutes, it is so much fatigued that it would 

 soon perish from exhaustion. In consequence of 

 ignorance on this subject, some of the earlier attempts 

 to keep the animal alive proved to be failures. When 

 the Duckbill was taken, its captors placed it in a tub 

 with water, and then were very much surprised to 

 find that by the next morning it was lying drowned 

 if the tub were half full of water ; and had scrambled 

 out and escaped if it were full enough to allow the 

 animal to get a foot upon the edge of the vessel. 



He also found that the longest time that they 



