229 
DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS. 
Platypus Anatinus. Vi'varmm Nature, fak '^S^. 
The Duck-billed Platypus. Naturalist^ s Miscellany, //. 385. 
The animal exhibited on the present plate con- 
stitutes a new and singular genus, which, in the 
Linn^an arrangement of quadrupeds, should be 
placed in the order Bruta, and should stand next 
to the genus Myrmecophaga. 
Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the 
most extraordinary in its conformation ; exhibit- 
ing the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck 
engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accu- 
rate is the similitude, that, at first view, it natu- 
rally excites the idea of some deceptive prepara- 
tion by artificial means ; the very epidermis, pro- 
portion, serratures, manner of opening, and other 
particulars of the beak of a shoveler, or other 
broad-billed species of duck, presenting them- 
selves to the view : nor is it Avithout the most mi- 
nute and rigid examination that we can persuade 
ourselves of its being the real beak or snout of a 
quadruped. 
The body is depressed, and has some resem- 
blance to that of an Otter in miniature : it is co- 
vered with a very thick, soft, and beaver-like fur, 
and is of a moderately dark brown above, and of 
a subferruginous white beneath. The head is flat- 
tish, and rather small than large : the mouth or 
snout, as before observed, so exactly resembles 
that of some broad-billed species of duck that it 
