240 BURRELL. 



recess until she has burrowed for a distance of at least several, and sometimes 

 as much as twelve feet. 



I examined two females during the 1919 season, however, one in milk ami the 

 other barren, in which the hair was not unusually worn; but this fact does not dis- 

 prove the suggestion offered above. 



It would appear that a platypus may be compelled to dig out 

 several burrows before she constructs one which is not faulty; and it 

 may be that she must dig far into a bank before she becomes aware 

 of faulty soil above the nesting chamber, which is usually that part of the bur- 

 row situated nearest the surface of the earth. The burrows vary from fourteen 

 to fifty feet in length, and they may lie tunnelled into soft soil, or into that which 

 is dry. caked, and gritty as a result of drought conditions. So that some females 

 may have much more burrowing to do than others, which would account for the 

 differences noted in the amount of hair worn from their tails. Platypus do not 

 occupy the breeding burrows after the young are capable of fending for them- 

 selves, but move into other burrows which arc situated near pools where food is 

 abundant. These are usually in the form of semicircular tunnels, and contain 

 from one to three sleeping recesses; they may run for a distance of seventeen 

 feet back in to the bank. They generally open under ledges formed where the 



river has washed away the soil from the 1 ts of trees. When the river is low. 



these openings are above the water, but secondary openings leading to the bur- 

 rows may lie found here and there higher up on the bank or even behind the 

 trees, which, I believe, are used by the animals either as exits or air-holes when 

 the river rises above the openings below the ledges. 1 have never found either 

 pug or nesting material in these temporary burrows. 



On December 23rd, 1914. 1 visited the Manilla River at Caermathen, and 

 while searching along the bank for platypus tracks, aceidently put my foot 

 through the soft earth into a burrow. As the soil near my legs suddenly heaved 

 I grabbed at the hidden objest moving beneath it, and secured an adult male 

 platypus which was trying to force his way past me. I then broke the tunnel 

 open towards the hank, and secured a second adult male which was coiled up in a 

 ball and half asleep in a cavity. This tunnel was apparently "Bachelor's quar- 

 ters." It may be mentioned here, that on January 25th, 1910, I trapped two adult 

 large male platypus together in a turret trap in the Xamoi River, at Manilla. 

 The trap had been set only one and a-lialf hours between six and eight o'clock in 

 the morning, and T believe the two were travelling together in search of food 

 This fact, together with the discovery of two males in the resting burrow, shows 

 that the males enjoy one another's company at some periods of the year. 



