OEDEE OP MONOTEEMATA. 13 



This spur allows to escape, at tlie 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. Various 



conjectiores have been made on the part that this spur and the liquid 



with which it is furnished have to play. It was thought for a 



long time that they constituted their oifensive and defensive 



weapons, and that the secretion was venemous, like that of the 



fangs of certain Snakes. What gave rise to this solution of the 



difiiculty, was the story of an accident which had happened to a 



sportsman who was pricked by the spur of an Ornithorhynchus, 



a story which was transmitted in 1817 to the Linnacan Society of 



London, by Sir John Jameson, then residing in Australia. It 



was said that the hunter's arm swelled up immediately after he 



had received the woimd, and that all the sj'mptoms of poisoning 



by a venom analogous to that of Snakes showed themselves. 



The evil at last yielded to external applications of oil, and to the 



internal use of ammonia ; but the man was more than a month 



before he recovered the entire use of his limbs. Many modern 



travellers deny that the spur of the Ornithorhynchus is a dangerous 



weapon ; some even afiirm that the animal never uses it in its 



defence. What M. J. Verreaux states is no doubt true. According 



to that naturalist, the liquid secreted by the gland communicating 



with the spur has nothing venemous about it. The organ in 



question, very much developed in the males, is quite rudimentary 



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



In short, nothing is more singular than the organization of this 

 animal, which resembles the Bird, the Fish, the Eci^tile, and the 

 Mammalia, and which seems to have been created on purpose to 

 drive the classifiers to desjjair. 



The Duckbill inhabits the sides of the lakes and the banks 

 of the rivers of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. They 

 dig burrows for themselves, and never leave them during the 

 day. They are not, however, absolutely nocturnal. When they 

 have a family to bring up, — their increasing wants giving them 

 fresh energy, — they bravely face the light of the sun. They 

 swim almost as rapidly as a fish, and run on land with no 

 less facility; only they are obliged to come frequently to the 

 surface of the water to breathe. They feed on aquatic grubs, on 

 molluscs, and on worms ; it is said that the mud even can serve 



