ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
Published by the New York Zoological Society 
Volume XXV 
SEPTEMBER, 1922 
Number 5 
NEW YORK’S DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS 
By W. T. Hornaday 
Illustrated from photographs by Elwin R. Sanborn. 
T HE spell of ten thousand years has been 
broken. 
The most wonderful of all living mam¬ 
mals has been carried alive from the insular 
confines of its far-too-distant native land, and 
introduced abroad. Through a combination 
of favoring circumstances it has been the good 
fortune of New York to give hospitality and 
Appreciation to the first platypus that ever 
left Australia and landed alive on a foreign 
shore. This consummation has been wrought 
out by the zeal for the transplantation of 
zoological rarities, the intelligence and the 
marvellous energy of one man, Mr. Ellis S. 
Joseph, of Sydney, Australia. 
No matter what evil fate may hereafter 
overtake the platypus species, nothing can rob 
us of the fact that New York has looked upon 
a living Ornithorhyncus paradoxus, and found 
it mighty interesting. It cost us $1400, but it 
was worth it. 
When our first platypus arrived at the 
Zoological Park on July 14, 1922, after a 
journey (of 10,000 miles) that had consumed 
the lives of four companions, we felt reason¬ 
ably certain that when fairly out from under 
the excitement of foreign travel the queer little 
beast would die in a very few days. We hoped 
that it might live for one week, but we resigned 
ourselves to the impending loss. It lived at 
the Park forty-nine days, and was on exhibi¬ 
tion daily, for one hour. 
At the outset we observed that the platypus 
is an animal of nervous temperament, and 
easily excited by too many observing eyes. It 
was evident that one hour of daily exhibition 
was all that the little animal could endure, and 
subsequent observations proved the correctness 
of this estimate. We are sure that a longer 
exhibition period would speedily have proven 
fatal to the distinguished stranger. 
The platypus arrived in the most amazing 
contraption that we ever have seen in use in 
animal transportation. Nothing short of real 
genius ever could have conducted it from 
Australia to New ■ York without a wreck in 
transit. It is 10 feet long over all, 3 feet 
wide, 2 feet 9 inches high, and it has more 
compartments than a Pullman car. Its mid¬ 
ship section consists of a large tank of water 
3>0x36xl8 inches, in which the water is about 
18 inches deep. The main deck forward con¬ 
tains an elevated pool of water which serves 
as the bathroom of the platypus, and this is 
flanked on either side by two small sandbanks. 
The “quarter-deck” is occupied by a laby¬ 
rinth of narrow halls, each one connected with 
its side partners by two holes of platypus size. 
All the holes are fitted with rubber gaskets, to 
scrape the water off the animal as it wriggles 
through to its burrow in the farthest corner, 
where it goes to sleep in a nest of dry hay. 
This labyrinth is connected with the large 
pool amidship by an up-slanting, water-tight 
box of sheet metal. 
The little animal swam and ate its food in 
the main tank, and it could retire to its burrow 
without exposure to the outside world. It had 
options on conditions that to the best of human 
ingenuity reproduced its river home, and its 
burrow,—with a submarine entrance,—in the 
dark depth of a bank of earth. 
The exhibition of the platypus was accom¬ 
plished by removing the wire-netting tops of 
the contraption, admitting visitors in a line, in 
single file, and permitting them to pass entirely 
around the man-made habitat of the animal. 
As the stream of visitors marched and counter- 
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