40 CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



is employed in this way. It is known that one per- 

 son at least has been wounded and very severely 

 poisoned with the spur of a captured duckbill.* 



Duckbills do not travel about much on dry land ; 

 their legs are much too short to make rapid progress 

 in that way possible, but they can swim very rapidly 

 both on and under the surface of the pools and 

 streams they frequent. Their nests, sometimes fifty 

 feet from the mouth of the passage that leads to 

 them, are situated in the banks of the stream or 

 pool, in which they spend most of their time. These 

 nests are placed in a cavity hollowed out for the pur- 

 pose, and are formed of dried plants. The passage 

 leading to them, besides being long, is very crooked, 

 bending and twisting in every direction, as if to dis- 

 courage any one following its windings in an attempt 

 to discover the place where the eggs are laid and 

 the little family of from one to four nestlings are 

 reared. The young duckbills when first hatched are 

 entirely naked, like baby mice, and their bills are very 

 short and broad, with smooth, fleshy edges. When 

 they sleep they have, in common with the old ones, 

 a curious halut of rolling themselves up into tight 

 little balls that look like anything rather than living 

 animals. When taken they soon become very tame. 

 A gentleman who kept several of them for pets says : 



" In a few days the young ones appeared to recog- 

 nize a call, swimming rapidly to my hand as I paddled 



* Jlr. Spicer, as related in the Proceedings of the Royal Society 

 of Tasmania for 1876, p. 162. 



