When the early travellers in Australia declared that they had there found animals like none other in creation, mammalian creatures that laid eggs and suckled their young; four legged, fur or quill-wearing animals, that were toothless, had duck’s bills, were aquatic in their habits, built nests, and had webbed feet, the description was received with a howl of derision. When skins of the marvellous creatures were sent home for inspection doubt still remained, and it was said that by some skillful manipulation the “head of a new kind of duck had been fastened to the body of a new kind of beaver to deceive science with a new kind of animal!” Wider zoological knowledge might have suggested that these creatures which were esteemed mere myths not only existed but were exactly what was to be expected. For as “Nature makes no leaps,” it was in entire harmony with the plan and progress of creation, that the order which was lowest in the scale of its class should share the characteristics of the next lower and less highly organized classes. The new world had already surprised the old with the marsupial opossums, and later Australia had contributed many other families of pouched animals. These had been placed in the lowest order of mammalian life. But here was a new type evidently lying still lower in the scale; and whereas some others of the newly discovered creatures bore some of the traits of ancient reptiles, these seemed to ally themselves to birds. It was hard to be believed. When at last the disputed animals had been caught, tamed, and sent to England and Germany for examination, great was the amazement of the scientific world. Articles were written, pictures were made, and for a time the new beasts were the theme of general discussion. The first name given to the first specimen was the platypus, and duck-billed platypus was the common designation for a time from 1799. The colonists in Australia meanwhile named the duck-billed and beaver-like animal a “water-mole,” from the fashion of its feet. The name platypus, however, was dropped because it had already been conferred on another creature. Then more learned heads were put together, and a name was produced so long and hard in Latin, that I dare not quote it. It meant, however, “bird-beaked-paradox.”[56] Probably the reason the poor thing has survived such a name is that it knows nothing about it. The finding of these curious animals made it necessary to erect another order in the mammalian class, an order that should embrace creatures lower in the scale than the marsupials. Four species under this order have been found, and probably there are no others. The duck-bill and the echidna, or “thorny” creature, are the two most interesting, and with most marked characteristics; to them we will now devote our attention. We shall see that no name more apt than that of “paradox,” could be given to creatures with such apparently contradictory characteristics. FOOTNOTES: