THE SPINY ANT-EATER OR ECHIDNA 



the platypus, occurring, in suitable localities, not only all over Australia and 

 Tasmania, but likewise in New Guinea. The last-named island is likewise the 

 home of the much larger three-toed echidna {Proechidna bruijnii), in which the beak 

 is longer, more slender, and distinctly curved, while the number of the toes on each 

 foot is reduced to three. 



With the commencement of evening the echidna issues forth from the lair 

 or burrow, in which it has passed the day, in search of food — this comprising not 

 only ants, both ordinary and white, but likewise such other insects and their grubs 

 as may be encountered or dug up during the nocturnal wanderings. Soon after 

 daybreak the creature returns to its burrow. During the hottest and driest part 

 of the Australian summer spiny ant-eaters fall into a torpid condition, when they 

 exist for weeks at a time on no other nourishment but their own fat. In cases 

 of extreme hunger they are stated to fill their stomachs with sand. At the end 

 of the dry season, when rain falls and the country resumes its verdure, the echidnas 

 wake up, and the males relinquish their normally solitary life and take to them- 

 selves partners. 



On occasions of danger the echidna has two means of defence — it can 

 either roll itself up into a ball and present a sphere of spikes to its enemy, or 

 it can burrow with such rapidity that it actually seems to sink into the earth as 

 if swimming. 



The single Qgg appears to be conveyed to the pouch by the female in 

 her mouth, and the parent assists the young echidna, whose muzzle is armed 

 with a special knob for that purpose, in breaking the shell. Naked and blind 

 when first hatched, the young one remains in the pouch till its spines make their 

 appearance, drawing its nutriment from two pores through which the milk flows. 

 When the young echidna has been turned adrift in the world to shift for itself, 

 the maternal breeding-pouch shrivels up, to be re-developed the following year. 



As in the case of the platypus, no remains of extinct echidnas are found 

 anywhere except in the superficial deposits of Australia itself. Certain teeth from 

 rocks older than the Chalk, both in Europe and America, may, however, indicate 

 the ancestral stock of the egg-laying group. 



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