THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
465 
Tachyglossus aculeatus ), is about ten or twelve inches long, has only a rudi¬ 
mentary tail, and a snout noticeable for the way in which it tapers to a point. 
Its dark brown body is covered with white spines, which are black on the tips. 
Its fore feet, employed in digging, are armed with long, stout nails, while the 
hind feet are used as hand-barrows (or feet barrows), with the unpatented 
addition of a shovel. The mouth is a mere aperture, sufficient, however, for- 
protruding and retracting its much-celebrated tongue—its weapon of offence^ 
This long and much-used member is constantly moistened with a viscid fluid r 
which enables the animal to hold securely whatever its tongue can reach. In 
the absence of teeth, it is provided with spines on the roof of its mouth and 
on its tongue. Among its other peculiarities of structure is the depression or 
seeming disappearance of the mammary glands when these serve no purpose 
for the suckling of the young. When the mammary glands are distended, 
there are formed two pouches, which serve as cosy apartments for the young, 
but which disappear altogether 
with the distension of the mam¬ 
mary glands. The flesh of the 
echidna is said to taste like 
that of young pigs. Like the 
preceding species it is peculiar 
to Australia, where so many 
singular forms of life are to be 
found. 
The link which seems to 
bind birds with mammals is 
found in the duck-billed mole 
and the echidna , in a direction 
where we would be least likely 
to expect it, and exhibits a 
fact which compels us to pause 
with profound astonishment at 
the marvellous provisions and 
apparent eccentricities of na¬ 
ture. The surprise to which I 
refer proceeds from the fact 
that these two creatures, instead of producing their young like all other mam¬ 
malians, are bird or reptilian in respect to the laying of eggs, from which the 
young are brought forth by incubation. This assertion was long ridiculed as 
an idle tale, worthy to rank with that which represents the cock as laying 
an egg, or a mare’s building a nest; but it is no longer so regarded, since 
the truth of the claim has been well established, and is now accepted by all 
naturalists. The eggs which these two quadrupeds lay are very much alike, 
that of the duck mole being only a little larger. They are oblong, and cov¬ 
ered with a leathery integument like those of many reptiles. Whether the 
eggs are really incubated is still a question for some dispute, though the weight 
of authority is in the affirmative. When the young issue from the egg they 
proceed at once to extract nourishment from the mammae of the mother after 
the manner of other quadrupeds, and are therefore true mammalians, with only 
the differences above explained. 
30 
ECHIDNA. DUCK MODE. 
