296 



THE ORNITHORHYNCHTJS. 



beaks into the soft mud 011 the river-sides, and particularly at 

 the roots of the various plants that grow in such situations. 



A person who resided several years in New South Wales, 

 says, that the principal prey of the ornithorhynchus " consists 

 of a pyramidical shell-fish, found in the mud of the Australian 

 rivers, about half an inch long, with a filmy crust encasing it, 

 as delicately thin as a piece of tissue paper. Several of these 

 pigmy morsels they usually bring up to the surface at the same 

 time, and there lie leisurely munching them with all the gotit 

 of refined epicures spitting out, if I may so term it, every 

 now and then, the fragments of the shattered shells, as they 

 are freed from the fish, and finally swallowing, before diving 

 again, the rich oyster-like fare which they contain. So careful 

 are they to reject the shells after the extraction of their contents, 

 that I never yet could detect the smallest particle of shell in 

 the stomachs of the many I have dissected, although their 

 mouths have been at the same time crammed with broken 

 fragments."* 



Their mode of foraging in the mud or water is very like that 

 of a duck when feeding in similar places ; immediately after 

 withdrawing the beak from the mud, they raise the head, and 

 masticate the prey they have obtained by a lateral motion of 

 one mandible upon the other. The cheek-pouches of specimens 

 recently captured generally contain mud and small stones, mixed 

 wp with portions of the animals on which they feed ; and it is 

 supposed that in these pouches the food undergoes trituration 

 and other changes, preliminary to its digestion in the stomach. 



The ornithorhynchus forms its habitation and nest by 

 burrowing in the banks of the rivers it frequents. Lieutenant 

 kauderdale Maule says, it generally chooses a site for this 

 purpose " where the water is deep and sluggish, and the bank 

 precipitous, and covered with reeds, or overhung by trees. 

 Considerably beneath the level of the stream's surface is the 

 main entrance to a narrow passage, which leads directly into 

 the bank, bearing away from the river (at a right angle to it),. 

 * Literary Gazette, No. 944. 



