A Scientific Marvel.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2000, 2 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Scientific Marvel.

I MILK-QIVISO ANIMAL THAT lATB EOG3 AVTKB THi: MAKHKII OF I REPTILE. " Was there anything particularly new developed at the late meeting of the British scientists at Montreal ' " was asked of a naturalist who had been attending the sessions of the American scientists in Philadelphia. " Decidly there was," replied the man of science. " One of the most remarkable discoveries of the age was made publio, and one that is likely to make some decided ohanges in theories now held. You have heard of a mare's nest and of hen's teeth ; both are intended generally to convey the impression of something highly improbable, and, curiously enough, science shows them to be quite the reverie ; as birds with teeth have been found in great numbers in the deposit of the West, and the recent discovery announced in Montreal is not muoh more astonishing than would be tbe statement that a mare's nest had been disoovered and contained eggs. " Why so ? Why, simply because a milkgiving animal, or one belonging to the same great class of animals as the horse, has been found to lay eggs after the fashion of a reptile. No, it isn't a fish story ; we are on mammals now, and the facts are that twenty years ago or so a famous English naturalist named Bennett went to Australia to study the fauna and wrote up the history of the animals called monotremes very thoroughly. Here are the animals," and the naturalist took down two curious creaturei from a stand. " They constitute the lowest of the tnilk-givera. This one, called the Ornithorynchus, or duckbill, you see, has a bill exactly like that of a duok, the nostrils being upon tbe upper side ; actual teeth are absent, but instead the duckbill has four horny projections that serve ai teeth ; they have no roots or anything of the kind, and are merely parts of the bill. The eyes are small and beadlike, the claws webbed and powerful, and, as you might expeot, the creature is a swimmer and a powerful digger, and from thii habit Bennett had muoh difficulty in studying them, bat he found that they lived in the water, much as do our muskrats, and burrowed into the banks, forming long, zig-zag oaves that ended per haps thirty feet above it and perfectly high and dry, and in the end the duok-bill formed Ufl nest of leavea and twigs. Bennett disoovered the nests by punching the ground with sharp sticks, and found quite a number, but in very few cases did he discover the young; then they were helpless little creatures, about two inches long, and it was then supposed that, as in the case of the marsupials, the young were rudimentary when born. A few of the natives Btated that the duck-bill laid eggs, but as Bennett oould not find, any, and it seemed preposterous to

think of, he paid no attention to it, and now, nearly twenty years later, it ia shown that the na'ives were correct, as during the session of the section of biology Prof M>sely. the eminent naturalist of the Challengi r Expedition, its president, received a cablegram from Prof. Liversedge, of Sydney, Australia, to the effect that Prof. Caldwell, who had gouo out to study the mammals of the country, had made the remarkable diaoovery that the duokbills and olherd of the order ware egglayor?." " What does this prove ? " "Well," was the reply, "naturalists c^im that we must look to the amphibians a** the frogs, etc., for the ancestors of the milk-giving animals, but this shows that the mammilj are closely allied to the reptiles. In fact, it's a sort of fifteen pu7zle for the anatomists to work at. The duck-bills have a spur that iB connected by a canal to a quasi poison dust, but Bonnett allowed it to lacerate his flesh and no bad effects were noticed. In tho skeleton we find sternal osseous ribs, as in the birds, an in the skull of the adult there are no sutures to ba aeon. Id fact there are a number .of peculiarities that makp the little creature a veritable ' what is it ' of science." — Philadelphia Times.