316 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



have induced the generic separation of the Ornithoryn- 

 chus from the Echidna ; which, as already stated, are 

 united by Sir Everard Home, their original commentator. 



Dr. Shaw, the first describer of this animal, named it 

 the Duck-billed Platypus, but Sir Joseph Banks having 

 shortly after sent a specimen to Blumenbach, that eminent 

 physiologist, preferred the name Ornithorynchus for the 

 newly-discovered creature ; the merited celebrity of the Ger- 

 man writer prevailed, and the genus has retained the name 

 of his choosing almost universally. 



Of all the Mammalia yet known, says Dr. Shaw, speak- 

 ing purely of its superficies, this seems the most extraordi- 

 nary in its conformation, exhibiting the perfect resemblance 

 of the beak of a duck engrafted on the head of a quadru- 

 ped. So accurate is the similitude that, at first view, it 

 naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by 

 artificial means, the very epidermis proportion, sereatous 

 manner of opening, and other particulars of the beak of a 

 Shoveler, or other broad-billed species of Duck, presenting 

 themselves to the view ; nor is it without the most minute 

 and rigid examination that we can persuade ourselves of 

 its being the real beak or snout of a quadruped. 



The body is depressed, and has some resemblance to that 

 of an Otter in miniature. It is covered with a very thick, 

 soft, and beaver-like fur, and is of a moderately dark 

 brown above, and of a subferruginous white beneath ; the 

 head is fiattish, and rather small than large ; the mouth, or 

 snout, as before observed, so exactly resembles that of some 

 broad-billed species of Duck, that it might be mistaken 

 for such; round the base is a flat, circular membrane, 

 somewhat deeper or wider below than above, viz., below, 

 near the fifth of an inch, and above about an eighth. 

 The tail is fiat, furry like the body, rather short and ob- 

 tuse, with an almost biped termination; it is broader at 



