The platypus

The first printed description of the platypus appeared in the tenth volume of the _Naturalist’s Miscellany_ (1799) under the name _Platypus anatinus_ and was written by Dr. Geor...

In the second volume of Collins’s _Account of the English Colony in New South Wales_ (1802, p. 62), under date ‘November, 1797,’ there occurs the following account of what was a...

Vertebrate animals are now divided into five classes--Fishes, Amphibia, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals--distinguished from one another by such obvious characters that no zoologica...

Home (1802), the first anatomist to examine the platypus, suggested that, from the nature of the reproductive organs in the female, it might be ovi-viviparous. In 1819 (p. 238)...

The general form of the platypus is by now familiar to all. It appears stuffed and mounted in all natural history museums, and illustrations of it adorn all ordinary natural his...

A primitive kind of mammal, which is in some respects intermediate between the higher mammals and the reptiles, might be expected to show a low grade of nervous organization and...

In both platypus and echidna there occurs on the inner side of each hind limb of the male a movable spur. This is found in the young female also; but in the full-grown female it...

The earliest statement concerning the burrowing habits of _Ornithorhynchus_ that I have been able to find is contained in Jamison’s brief sentence (1818, p. 585):--“The female i...

The platypus is confined to that part of Australia which lies east of 138° E. long., and to Tasmania. It has not so far been recorded from the Cape York Peninsula north of 15° S...

The early records contain little in the way of precise information as to the general habits of the platypus. Bennett (1860, p. 95) complains that, as long ago as 1829, “notwiths...

Since the platypus is such a shy and secretive creature, rarely seen at all except by those who take the trouble of investigation, it is not surprising to find that, in the past...

“This is all I have been able to bring together anent Platypus and his spur, and little enough it is. I dare say when Australia is more settled, and Ornithorhynchus has been imp...

Australian mammals have so far proved disappointing. The dingo will certainly parade his enclosure by day, but he is just a dog, after all. The kangaroos and wallabies show well...