764 MONOTREMATA. 



animal duly organized for aquatic life. Its feet have five toes, terminated 

 by stout nails. The front feet are completely webbed. The tail is broad, 

 of middling length, and flattened on its lower surface. The beak is flat- 

 tened, and is not much unlike that of a swan or duck. Two great horny 

 excrescences, placed on each jaw, supply the place of molars. Its coat is 

 pretty thick, and is of a brown color, more or less tinged with russet, 

 changing to light-fawn on the abdomen. 



In the males, the heels of the posterior members are each armed with 

 a spur or dew claw, pierced with a hole at its extremity. This spur 

 allows to escape, at the will of the animal, a liquid, secreted by a gland 

 which is situated on the thigh, and with which the spur communicates 

 by a broad subcutaneous conduit. This liquid has nothing venomous 

 about it. The organ in question, very much developed in the males, is 

 quite rudimentary in the females, and, as she ages, disappears entirely. 

 Dr. Bennett allowed himself frequently to be wounded with this spur, 

 and experienced no ill effects. 



The Duck Mole can run on land and swim in water with equal ease. 

 Its fore-feet are used for digging as well as swimming, and are armed 

 with powerful claws. The animal has been seen to make a burrow two 

 feet in length through hard gravelly soil in less than ten minutes. It 

 uses its beak as well as its feet when digging. The burrow in which the 

 Mullingong lives is generally from twenty to forty feet in length, and 

 always bends upward toward a sort of chamber in which the nest is 

 made. This nest is of the rudest description, consisting of a bundle of 

 dried weeds thrown carelessly together. The burrow has a very evil 

 odor, which is unpleasantly adherent to the hand that has been placed 

 within it. 



Owing to the extremely loose skin of the Mullingong, it can push its 

 way through a very small aperture, and is not easily retained in the 

 grasp, wriggling without much difficulty from the gripe of the fingers. 

 The loose skin and thick fur are also preventives against injury, as the 

 discharge of a gun, which would blow any other animal nearly to pieces, 

 seems to take but little external effect upon the Duck Bill. The animal 

 is, moreover, so tenacious of life, that one of these creatures which had 

 received the two charges of a double-barreled gun, was able, after it had 

 recovered from the shock, to run about for twenty minutes after it had 

 been wounded. 



The food of the Mullingong consists of worms, water insects, and 



