ORNITHORHYNCHUS PARADOXUS. 
ORDER . -PALMATA. FAMILY . -BRUTA. 
By Frederick Ryland. 
This singular animal has excited the attention of naturalists in a very great 
degree, from the peculiarities of its organization, which, until they were more 
minutely investigated, caused some doubt as to whether it could properly be 
arranged under any of the existing classes of vertebrata , and hence the name 
Ornithorhynchus paradoxus was assigned it by Professor Blumenbach, and has 
been retained to the present day. 
The body of the animal is rather flattened horizontally, and partakes of the 
characters of the Otter, the Mole, and the Beaver.* Its length, measured from 
the extremity of the mandible to the end of the tail, varies, in full-grown speci¬ 
mens, from sixteen to twenty-three or twenty-four inches; the male is generally 
found to be, in a slight degree, larger than the female. The body is covered 
externally with long silky hairs of a dark-brown colour approaching to black, 
underneath which is a very fine soft fur of a greyish colour, the latter being thick¬ 
er and softer on the under surface of the animal. In the possession of these two 
kinds of hair, the Ornithorhynchus resembles many of the amphibious quadru¬ 
peds, as the Otter and the Beaver. The tail' is flat and broad, and varies in 
length from four and a half to six inches ; the hair covering its upper surface is 
longer and coarser than that of any other part of the body, and projects a little 
distance beyond the termination of the tail. 
The legs are exceedingly short; the hinder ones rather shorter than the fore 
legs ; the feet have each five toes, connected with each other by a strong mem¬ 
branous expansion, like the feet of a Duck; in the fore feet, which are the largest 
and most powerful, the web extends a little distance beyond the extremities of the 
claws, whilst in the hinder feet it attains only to the roots of the claws. The 
claws on the fore feet are strong and blunt, and well adapted for burrowing, those 
on the hind feet are sharp and curved backwards. The fore feet, with their 
membranous web are, when expanded, four inches across, and that part of the web 
* See an account of the structure and habits of the Ornithorhynchus , in the Transactions 
of the Zoological Society of London , vol. i,, part iii., by Mr. G. Bennett, to which the author 
is indebted for most of the facts contained in the present article. 
VOL. I. 
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