A LITTLE QUADRUPED THAT LAYS EGGS. 39 



A LITTLE QUADRUPED THAT LAYS EGGS. 



WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. 



If the question arises wliicli of the mammals hv- 

 ing at the present day — taking into consideration its 

 habits, outward shape, and anatomical construction — 

 is the most extraordinary, the decision might hang in 

 doubt a long tune but for the existence of one animal 

 so singular in appearance, so strange in its physical 

 makeup, and in some, at least, of its habits, that the 

 answer must of necessity name it and no other. This 

 is the Australian duckbill. To the head, bill, and 

 webbed feet of a duck it seems to unite the body 

 and tail of a quadruped ; and to more distinctly mark 

 its birdlike affinities, it lays eggs — a fact formerly 

 doubted, but now known to be true. 



It has other birdlike peculiarities of structure 

 united to some that suggest the reptile tribes. One 

 very singular formation, the like of which, with one 

 exception, is possessed by no other animal, is a sharp- 

 ly pointed movable spur on the heels of the hind feet 

 of the males. A canal as it is called, or empty vein, 

 runs from a little opening near the point of the spur 

 back to a passage that leads to a large gland situated 

 in the thigh. The whole apparatus is so hke in its 

 structure that of the poison gland and tooth of a ven- 

 omous snake as to hint at a similar use and purpose, 

 and there is proof that it sometimes, though not often, 



