16 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
parent after the manner of the members of the above-named groups. The antiquity 
of this monotrematous order is indicated by the circumstance that teeth most 
closely resembling the temporarily developed ones of Ornithorhynchus have been met 
with in association with certain obscure mammalian remains that occur as fossils in 
the mesozoic strata of North America. 
The natural food habits of both the Ornithorhynchus and the Echidna are such 
as to prevent them from becoming forms with which the British public can hope to 
become very familiar in the living state. The Ornithorhynchus is essentially an aquatic 
animal. It is for the most part, though not strictly, nocturnal, and dependant upon a 
pabulum of worms, fish spawn, mollusca and aquatic insects that cannot be easily 
supplied in a state of captivity. All efforts, so far, even in Australia, have failed to 
keep it alive for more than a few weeks, and no attempts to bring it to Europe 
have proved successful. The authority who has cultivated, and published an account of, 
the most intimate acquaintanceship with the Ornithorhynchus is, undoubtedly, the late 
Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney. In his well-known work, “The Gatherings of a 
Naturalist,” published in the year 1860, he has given a most interesting and widely- 
quoted record of his extended experiences in the possession of numerous examples of 
both young and adult individuals, neither of which, however, he was able to keep 
alive for a long period. Dr. Bennett was also unsuccessful in solving that knotty 
question relative to the reproductive phenomena of Ornithorhynchus, which had at. this 
earlier date already attracted the attention of many eminent naturalists, and which was 
only set at rest in the year 1884 by the investigations of Mr. W. H. Caldwell, who 
then, for the first time, incontestibly demonstrated that both this type, as well as the 
Echidna, were oviparous mammalia. 
The Ornithorhynchus, or Duck-billed Platypus, has not fallen within the writer’s 
purview to an extent that enables him to place on record any new data concerning its 
natural habits. At the salmon and trout-hatching establishment on the river Plenty, 
in Tasmania, this interesting animal had, unfortunately, to be systematically destroyed 
on account of its too strongly developed proclivities for dieting on the jealously 
guarded ova of the Salmonide. A wounded specimen, obtained from this source, which 
survived for but a day or so, was the only living one that fell into the author’s 
possession. While investigating and reporting for the Victorian Government upon the 
fish and fisheries of the Victorian section of the river Murray, in the neighbourhood of 
Echuca, a well-authenticated instance was reported to the writer of a lad who, 
incautiously holding a male Platypus that had become entangled in his father’s nets, 
