EDENTATA. 149 
a small mouth, contains an extensible tongue similar to that of the Ant- 
Eaters and Pangolins, and like these, they feed on Ants. They have no 
teeth, but their palate is furnished with several rows of small recurved 
spines. Their short feet have each five very long and stout nails fitted 
for digging; and the whole upper surface of the body is covered with 
spines like that of the Hedgehog. It appears, that when in danger, they 
also possess the faculty of rolling themselves into a ball. Their tail is 
very short; their stomach ample and almost globular, and their cecum 
moderate; the penis is terminated by four tubercles. There are two 
species. 
E. hystrix; Ornithorhynchus hystrix, Home; Myrmecophaga 
aculeata, Shaw. (The Spiny Echidna). Completely covered with 
large spines. 
E.. setosa; Ornithor. setosus, Home. (The Bristly Echidna). 
Is covered with hair, among which the spines are half hidden. 
Some naturalists consider it as a mere variety from age. 
OrnitHoRuHYNcHUs, Blumemb.—Puatyrus, Shaw. 
The elongated, and at the same time singularly enlarged and flattened 
muzzle of the Ornithorhynchi presents the closest external resemblance 
to the bill of a duck, and the more so as its edges are similarly furnished 
with a small transverse lamine. They have no teeth except at the bot- 
tom of the mouth, where there are two throughout, without roots, with 
flat crowns, and composed like those of the Orycteropus, of little vertical 
tubes. There is a membrane to the fore feet, which not only unites the 
toes, but extends far beyond the nails; in the hind feet the membrane 
terminates at the root of the nails; two characters, which, with the flat- 
tened tail, make them aquatic animals. Their tongue is in a manner 
double: one in the bill bristled with villosities; and a second on the base 
of the first, which is thicker, and furnished anteriorly with two little 
fleshy points. The stomach is small, oblong, and has the pylorus near 
the cardia. ‘The cecum is small; and many salient and parallel lamine 
are visible in the intestines. The penis has only two tubercles. ‘The 
Ornithorhynchi inhabit the rivers and marshes of New Holland, in the 
neighbourhood of Port Jackson. 
Two species only are known, one with smooth, thin, reddish fur, 
the Ornithorhyncus paradoxus (a), Blumemb., and the other with 
blackish-brown, flat and frizzled hair. Probably these are only 
varieties of age. Voy. de Peron, I. pl. xxxiv. 
ke (a) The problem which is here alluded to remains up to the present time 
unsolved; at least, the state of the controversy is this—that whilst several naturalists, 
those who examined the animal formerly, and in our own day, agree that it belongs 
to the Mammalia, it is contended by one, the most experienced of them all, we al- 
lude to Geoffroy St. Hilaire, that there is nothing in its anatomy to justify such a 
decision. The very recent investigations of Mr. Richard Owen, of the Royal Col- 
lege of Surgeons, have led him to bear testimony to the existence of the milk glands 
for supporting the young. In five instances he has seen these glands under different 
degrees of development, and describes an areola on the external surface of the skin 
on the glands, consisting of minute orifices, from which, in one instance, he was 
able by pressure to extract drops of oil, and which he found by injection to be con- 
tumous with minute passages through the lobules constituting the gland. The 
