EDENTATA.]

though low in stature, acquires considerable size, the specimen (Manis macroura) from which our drawing was taken measuring upwards of four feet; and some, it is said, grow considerably larger.

We shall close our sketch of the Edentata with the notice of a genus, which contains the most extraordinary tribe of animals with which we are at present acquainted, namely, that denominated Ornithorhynchus.* Of this genus, notwithstanding all that is advanced, we can only number one species, varying in the smoothness or crisped texture of the fur; together with a few minor differences, much less marked than what are every day seen to occur among other animals confessedly identical: besides, we have traced intermediate states of the fur, indicating a process of change (perhaps from age) to be in operation. At all events, as no difference exists in habits and manners, we shall not trouble our readers by wire-drawn distinctions, but at once introduce them to the ORNITHORHYNCHUS PARADOXUS, the Water Mole of the English colonists, and the Mouflengong of the aborigines. (See Engraving, No. 39.)

This singular animal, which appears in so many points of his structure to approach the bird, is a native of New Holland, where it frequents the banks of rivers and marshes. It was first described by Dr. Shaw, who gave it the name of "the Duck-billed Platypus;" but subsequently the celebrated German physiologist, Blumenbach, conferred upon it its present title, which is the one universally adopted.

Nothing can seem more strange than the combination of outward details which the form of this creature presents, nor is its anatomical structure less marvellous. The length of the Ornithorhynchus is fourteen or fifteen inches; the body is compressed, and covered with fine fur, of a dark chestnut colour, approaching to chocolate; the head is small, and terminates in a beak, which, though broader and shorter, very closely resembles that of a duck, both in form and structure, having, however, at the base of the upper and under mandible a loose leathery membrane stretching across at its union with the skull. The eyes are so small as to be scarcely visible, but their situation is indicated by an oval spot of white, beneath which they may be found buried in the fur. The limbs are extremely short; and the fore feet are furnished with five strong and sharp nails, being connected together, as well as the toes themselves, by a tough web, which extends a considerable distance beyond them. On the hind feet there are also five long and somewhat curved claws; but the web extends only to their base; in the male, the hind leg is furnished with a strong sharp conical spur, bent obliquely backwards, and capable of inflicting a severe, but not as was once suspected, a poisoned wound. The tail is broad, flat, and covered with harsher hairs than the body, which diverge at the tip so as to form an almost forked termination. At the back of the mouth there are small rudimentary teeth, two on each side above and below, without roots, and composed of little vertical tubes. The Ornithorhynchus is aquatic in its • From two Greek words, signifying bird's bill.

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habits, being an expert and active swimmer; its dwelling is in burrows in the bank by the water's edge. In its habits, it is timid and recluse, and if surprised upon the shore, it makes for the water, where it dives among the weeds and tangled herbage, and from the skill and rapidity of its manœuvres generally manages to escape. On land, notwithstanding the shortness of its limbs, it trips along with great alacrity. Confined exclusively to New Holland, it has become scarce, where it was formerly very common; but it is still abundant in the less frequented districts. When first brought to Europe, its anomalous structure, and the accounts which accompanied it, created no little surprise; and many points, notwithstanding minute anatomical dissection, are still far from being solved satisfactorily.

In an account of the habits of this creature, by a gentleman who has had many opportunities of investigating them, and which was read before the Meeting of Science and Correspondence of the Zoological Society, we are informed, that the spot it chooses for its burrow is the bank of a river, "where the water is deep and sluggish, and the bank precipitous, and covered with reeds or overhung with trees. Considerably below the stream's surface is the main entrance to a narrow passage, which leads directly into the bank

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bearing away from the river at a right angle to it, and gradually rising above its highest watermark. At the distance of some few yards from the river's edge, this passage branches into two others, which, describing each a circular course to the right and left, unite again in the nest itself, which is a roomy excavation lined with leaves and moss, and situated seldom more than twelve yards from the water, or less than two feet beneath the surface of the earth." Here it brings up its young, safe in its inaccessible retreat from the eyes of the curious.

Similar as is the Ornithorhynchus in many points of its outward structure to the bird, it also exhibits certain analogies in its internal conformation. Without entering into anatomical details, we may state that it is yet a matter of doubt whether or not it produces eggs, from which its young are afterwards hatched. That it does not produce its young as mammiferous animals in general, is universally allowed; but whether it be truly oviparous, (that is, producing eggs which are afterwards hatched,) or ovoviviparous, (that is, producing eggs which are hatched before exclusion, as is the case with the common viper, Vipera berus, DAUD.) is yet a disputed point. In a communication from Lieutenant Maul to the committee above alluded to, and read at a subsequent meeting, that gentleman states, that in several nests, with labour and difficulty discovered, "no eggs were found in a perfect state, but pieces resembling egg-shell were picked out of the debris of the nest. In several female Platypi which we shot, eggs were found of the size of a large musketball and downwards, imperfectly formed however, that is, without the hard outer shell." "An old female, which lived two weeks in captivity with a young one, being killed by accident on the fourteenth day after her capture, and being skinned while yet warm, it was observed that milk oozed through the fur on the stomach, though no teats were visible on the most minute inspection; but on proceeding with the operation, two canals were discovered containing milk, and leading to a large glandular apparatus."

These canals, however, as has been recently ascertained by minute dissection, are not single; but on each side there is a bundle of small capillary tubes, united so as to form a short cord; these fine tubes open in a dark coloured circle on the skin, but which is covered by the fur, the glandular mass from which they proceed being of large size, compressed, extending nearly the whole length of the body, and lying immediately beneath the skin. From the collective evidence we have been able to obtain, as well as from some circumstances connected with its anatomy, we are strongly disposed to believe that the Ornithorhynchus is ovoviviparous, or, in other words, that the young are indeed hatched from eggs, but hatched before their birth, when they are extremely small, and that their nutriment is the fluid prepared in the large mammary gland, and which the mother has most probably the means of instilling into the mouth of its helpless offspring. Such is the mystery which yet hangs over this extraordinary creature; an animal which seems as if expressly made to show how multiform and inexhaustible are the resources of the Almighty Creator; nor can we help remarking

[PACHYDERMATA.

that it appears to form a link between the more perfect mammalia and the feathered race, uniting the forms and characters of each in its own structure, so as to be in truth a paradox.

The food of this animal is said to consist of aquatic insects, worms, and perhaps seeds or other vegetable matter, which it searches for among the mud with its bill like a duck, separating them from the refuse by means of a line of small serrations along the edge. All attempts to rear it in captivity or bring it alive to Europe have as yet failed.

ORDER VII.-PACHYDERMATA. Limbs four, and furnished with hoofed toes, variable in number; the stomach not constructed for ruminating; the body generally massive, and the skin thick. THE Edentata terminate that series of the mammalia as arranged by Cuvier, in which we find the feet furnished with true nails; and we may trace in the last order indications of a departure from this character, pointing out an alliance to that which succeeds, and which begins a series of mammalia whose feet are constructed upon different principles. To this change we do not, however, pass suddenly, but are prepared for it, as we have said, by the hoof-like nails, and the total absence of tact or discrimination, as it regards the feet, and by the restricted action of the limbs, so conspicuous in the armadillo, the manis, and others of that singular group. Passing onwards, then, we leave the Unguiculata, (or nailed tribes,) and enter upon the Ungulata, (or hoofed tribes,) whose feet have neither the slightest pretensions to the power of grasping or holding, nor to the least trace of the faculty of discrimination, but are encased more or less completely in horny hoofs; while, at the same time, the total absence of a collar-bone, in conjunction with the hingelike structure of the joints of the limbs, adapts these organs simply and exclusively for support and progression, rendering them incapable of more complicated movements.

The food of a race of such animals is necessarily vegetable; though differing from each other in many points, they therefore offer much less decided contrasts than we find among the subjects of the six previous orders, forming only two great divisions: the one including such as ruminate, or chew the cud; the other such as do not ruminate. The animals of the latter division, or order, will first occupy our attention: they are called Pachydermata, (πaxis, thick, dépμa, skin,) from the massive thickness or solidity of the skin; a feature by which the most prominent species, at least, are strikingly characterized.

Of the genera into which the pachydermatous order is subdivided, we first notice that which may be considered the most remarkable and interesting, namely, that of the ELEPHANT, (Elephas, LINN.) upon the characters of which we shall dwell as briefly as possible, but which will prove an introduction to the history of the animal itself. A proboscis, or flexible elongation of the nose, is certainly a leading feature; the feet have five toes, distinctly developed as regards the skeleton, but so "encrusted," to use the expression

PACHYDERMATA.]

of Cuvier, "in the callous skin which envelopes the foot," that their existence in the living animal is only indicated by the nails attached to this sort of hoof. The canine and incisor teeth are wanting; but in the bones from which the incisor teeth arise in other animals, are two tusks, or as the French more appropriately call them, défenses, which grow to an enormous size, and whose roots, implanted in immense sockets, appear to occupy the greater portion of the face. The skull, notwithstanding its great volume, is lighter than might be expected, its walls consisting of two tables, between which a wide space intervenes, intersected by thin partitions into large cells and caverns, so as to form a honeycomb structure on a large scale, and void of regularity. The grinders bear a striking analogy in their structure to those of many of the Rodentia, and consist of a certain number of vertical lamina, each formed of bone, enveloped in enamel, compacted together by a third substance called cortical. These grinders are not permanent, as is the case with the second set in mammalia in general, but are changed six or eight times, succeeding each other not vertically, or, in other words, by the new one pushing up the old one, as is usual; but by the new one rising up behind the old one, and pressing it forwards, so that as the latter wears down it is gradually pushed onwards by that which comes after it, and eventually takes its place; so that the Elephant has at one time one, at another time two on each side above or below. The number of laminæ of which these grinders are formed are fewer in the first set, and increased in that which succeeds. The tusks are changed also, but only once, the first, or milk tusks, being shed between the first and second year, when not two inches in length. "In a month or two after this process, the permanent tusks cut the gum; these remain during the life of the animal, and are never again shed."

Cuvier has published a table of the length, diameter, and weight of the largest tusks, whether of the African or Indian Elephant, of which any account has been given. The largest on record was one sold at Amsterdam, which is recorded to have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. Several tusks measured by Eden were nine feet in length; and one described by Hartenfels, in his Elephantographia, exceeded fourteen feet the largest in the Museum of Natural History at Paris is nearly seven feet in length, and about five inches and a half in diameter at the larger end. The size is not, however, a criterion of that of the body, as they continue to increase during life. The usual size of the finest brought to the India House from Bengal vary from seventy to a hundred pounds each, though some have weighed a hundred and fifty.

:

Two distinct species of Elephant are at present known. One a native of India, (Elephas Indicus, Cuv.) the other of Africa, (Elephas Africanus, Cuv.) The characteristic differences are briefly these:-In the African, the head is rounder, the tusks larger, the ears of enormous magnitude, covering the shoulders, and often used by the natives as a sort of truck, upon which to drag various loads. The molars also in the African have their flat surfaces marked with large, irregular, lozenge-shaped ribands, passing from

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