
PLATYPUS. 101 
afterwards contradicted themselves. The Tumut blacks said ‘‘no 
egg tumble down ; pickaninny make tumble down.” Dr. Bennett 
obtained several specimens in the Yass, Murrumbidgee, and Tumut 
districts. These were dissected by him, and in some he found im. 
perfectly formed eggs; but, although he discovered and dug out 
several burrows, he never met with the slightest trace of an egg. In 
one burrow, in the banks of the Murrumbidgee in Dec., there were 
some very young ornithorhynchi, but no appearance of anything like 
shells about the nest. He was inclined to consider all the facts that 
he had been able to ascertain, as militating against an assertion or a 
theory that the platypus lays eggs. Mr. Gould also answered this 
question in the negative; he was of opinion that its young are 
brought forth in an imperfectly formed state, like those of the kan- 
garoo. He writes that on his return from Australia, the venerable 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire put the following question to him :—‘‘ Does the 
ornithorhynchus lay eggs?” When he answered in the negative, 
that fine old gentleman and eminent naturalist appeared somewhat 
disconcerted. 
Oviparity.—So far back as 1832, a statement bearing on this 
subject was published in the Proceedings of the Committee of 
Science and Correspondence of the Zoological Society, London. 
Lieutenant Mole wrote to Dr. Weatherhead, that he had tried to 
discover the grounds for the generally accepted belief—that the 
ornithorhynchus lays eggs and suckles its young, that he had found 
in females ‘eggs of the size of a musket-ball, but without the hard 
outer shell, and in the nest, young ones and remains of a substance 
resembling egg-shell.” This is the first direct and, perhaps, the 
only evidence of anything ‘‘ resembling egg-shell” having been found 
in a nest. In 1864, Mr. George Rumby, a gold receiver in Australia, 
obtained from some miners a female platypus This animal, when 
shut up in a gin-case, laid two eggs, which were white, soft, and 
without shell, easily compressible, and about the size of a crow’s 
egg. Mr. Rumby wrote a statement of this to Sir R. Owen, 
suggesting in his letter that the eggs might have been prematurely 
produced through fear. These eggs were also seen by Dr. Nicholson, 
who wrote directly to Owen. Sir R Owen accepted the suggestion 
made by Mr. Rumby, and published the correspondence in 1865. 
He was of opinion that the platypus is ovoviviparous, that is, it 
hatches the eggs within the body as some fish and reptiles do. Mr, 
Krefft, writing in 1871, remarks :—‘* Dr. Bennett. discovered the 
young of a platypus thirty years ago, but very few, if any specimens 
have since been obtained ; and no further progress has been made 
towards the solution of the stiil pending and highly interesting 
physiological question—Does the platypus lay eggs? In_the 
Melbourne museum there are two eggs preserved In spirits. They 
were presented by Mr. V. W. Black, of Seymour, but obtained from 
the anirhal when dead. In 1882, Professor #. M. Balfour suggested 
that Mr. W. H. Caldwell, M.A., should undertake the study of the 
development of the peculiar Australian mammalia and ceratodus. 
Tn 1883 he decided to carry out this suggestion, and was elected to 

