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NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



strange mixture of different species, and sometimes of dif • 

 ferent orders — a mixture of beast, bird, reptile, and fish — 

 that it would seem as if Nature, in a jocose mood and with 

 abroad grin upon her countenance, had purposely formed 

 living conundrums to excite curiosity and prove the de- 

 spair of science. (Some of these strange forms are ranked 

 as beasts and some as birds, as the mixed characteristics 

 predominate in one direction or the other. 



3. One of these creatures is ranked as a mammal, and is 

 familiarly called the duck-bill. In science it is known as 



The Ornithorhynclius. 



the ornithorhynclius, or the beast with a bill, and it is cer- 

 tainty a marvel in structure and habits. It has a broad, 

 flat body, with four short legs, the feet terminating in five 

 toes armed with sharp claws, and is about the size of a 

 woodchuck. It is clothed with a coat of fine fur, dark 

 brown above and whitish below. At the end of long bur- 

 rows in the river-banks they make uests of leaves and grass, 

 where they deposit their eggs from which the young are 



