14 MAMMALIA. 



for their sustentation in default of other aliment. If one tries to 

 catch them, they endeavour to bite ; but their beak is too weak to 

 do one any harm. It is at the bottom of their burrow, in a sort of 

 nest formed of interlaced roots, that the females deposit their little 

 ones. M. J. Verreaux was the first who described their mode of 

 suckling their young. It appears that the mother makes her 

 young ones follow her into the water, and that she diffuses her 

 milk around her ; this liquid floats to the top of the water, and is 

 immediately sucked up by her young. This manner of proceeding, 

 which has no analogy in any other order of Mammalia, would 

 suffice in itself alone to make the Duckbill one of the most 

 astonishing of aninrals. 



This creature seems to accommodate itself to bondage very badly. 

 Mr. Bennett possessed two young ones, which he had taken himself 

 in a burrow ; and although he had not removed them from their 

 native country, and bestowed upon them the most assiduous atten- 

 tions, he could not keep them alive : they died after five weeks of 

 captivit)'. " They were," sa3rs Mr. Bennett, " very frolicsome little 

 things, and played like kittens. They were very fond of dabbling 

 about in a dish filled with water and furnished with a tuft of 

 grass ; they slept a great deal, especially during the day. Their 

 food consisted of bread sopped in water, of hard boiled eggs, and 

 meat chopped very fine." 



Up to the present time only one species of Duckbill is known 

 — the OrnithoHiyndius nnatinus — an animal of about the size of 

 a small Otter, which is called by the Australian colonists " the 

 River Mole." No liviag specinien has ever been broup-ht to 

 Europe. 



Fazuily of Echidna. — The Porcupine Ant-eaters have squat, 

 thick-set bodies, low on their legs, the tad very short, the beak 

 and tongue narrow and elongated, the toes armed with nails for 

 digging, the back covered -with prickles much thicker than those 

 of the Hedgehog, intermingled with bristly hairs. The males 

 have the spur, as in the Duckbill. They inhabit sandy places, 

 dig themselves burrows in the sand, and live on ants which 

 they catch by projecting their tongue, covered with a viscous 

 humom-, into the dwellings of those insects. Hence the name of 

 Myrmecophagi (eaters of ants), which was formerly o-iven to 



