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XXVI.  Notes  on  the  Natural  History  and  Habits  of  the  Ornithorhynchus  paradoxus, 
Blum.    By  George  Bennett,  Esq.,  F.L.S.,  Corr.  Memb.  Z.8. 
Communicated  May  27,  1834. 
In  the  commencement  of  the  year  1829,  when  I  first  arrived  in  the  Colony  of  New 
South  Wales,  my  attention  was  directed  towards  two  points  of  Natural  Science  which 
were  at  that  time  desiderata — one  the  mode  of  generation  of  the  Kangaroo,  to  explain 
in  what  manner  the  young  are  brought  into  connexion  with  the  nipple — and  the  other 
the  mode  of  generation  and  habits  of  the  animal  which  forms  the  subject  of  the  present 
communication. 
To  all  the  inquiries  I  made  of  persons  long  resident  in  the  Colony,  I  could  only  pro- 
cure very  unsatisfactory  replies.  I  found  then,  as  I  also  found  on  my  subsequent  and 
second  visit  to  the  Colony,  that  the  majority  preferred  forming  theories  of  their  own 
and  arguing  on  their  plausibility,  to  devoting  a  few  leisure  days  to  the  collection  of  facts 
by  which  the  questions  might  be  set  at  rest  for  ever.  At  this  time  a  voyage  of  great 
interest  to  me,  among  the  Islands  of  the  Polynesian  Archipelago  and  to  New  Zealand, 
prevented  my  devoting  the  time  which  I  had  at  first  intended  to  employ  in  attempting 
the  discovery  and  elucidation  of  those  doubtful  points  ;  and  I  left  New  South  Wales  in 
March  1829,  expecting  that  before  my  return  to  England  some  intelligent  person  resi- 
dent in  the  Colony  would  devote  himself  to  the  task  and  determine  them  by  actual 
observation.  On  my  return  to  England,  however,  in  April  1831,  I  found  that  all  the 
questions  relative  to  those  animals  still  remained  in  the  same  undecided  state,  excepting 
that  my  friend  Mr.  Owen  had  succeeded  in  injecting  with  mercury  the  ducts  of  the 
supposed  mammary  glands  of  the  Ornithorhynchus  ;  a  communication  on  which  subject, 
as  I  have  seen  since  leaving  England  in  1832,  he  has  laid  before  the  Royal  Society. 
I  again  left  England  for  the  Colony  of  New  South  Wales  in  May  1832,  and  soon 
after  my  arrival  there  in  August  I  visited  the  interior  of  the  country,  and  devoted  much 
time  to  the  investigation  of  the  habits  and  oeconomy  of  these  animals  in  their  native 
haunts. 
The  Ornithorhynchus  is  known  to  the  colonists  by  the  name  of  Water-Mole,  from 
some  resemblance  which  it  is  supposed  to  bear  to  the  common  European  Mole,  Talpa 
Europaa,  Linn. :  by  the  native  tribes  at  Bathurst  and  Goulburn  Plains,  and  in  the 
Yas,  Murrumbidgee,  and  Tumat  countries,  I  universally  found  it  designated  by  the 
name  of  Mallangong  or  Tambreet ;  but  the  latter  is  more  in  use  among  them  than  the 
former. 
The  body  of  this  singular  animal  is  depressed  in  form,  and  in  some  degree  partakes 
2  H  2 
