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AX ANIMAL CURIOSITY. 



deep brown colour. His short tail is covered with perpendicular 

 spines. Digging up the ground with his keen claws he disburies a 

 host of insects, which he rolls over his long red cylindrical tongue. 

 He is very timid, and when any one approaches him, coils himself up 

 in a ball, like a hedgehog. 



The Ornithorhynchus ("Bird-beaked"), or Duck-Silled Platypus, 

 is another extraordinary animal, which seems to serve as the connect- 

 ing link between the aquatic birds and the mammalia. His length 





1. Ornithorhynchus. 2. Echidna. 



is about twenty inches ; his body, long and flattened like an otter's, 

 is covered with a thick soft fur, moderately dark brown above and 

 whitish beneath ; his tail is flat and obtuse ; his feet are fur- 

 nished with a membrane that unites the toes ; and he has an elon- 

 gated, enlarged, and flattened muzzle like a duck's beak. It is 

 evident, therefore, that he can live only on soft food, and that his 

 habits must be aquatic ; and hence we find him burrowing in the 

 banks of the streams, and groping for his food, like a duck, among 



