LESSON XXVIII.

BESIDE AUSTRALIAN RIVERS.

“He can beholdThings manifoldThat have not yet been wholly told—Have not been wholly sung or said.”

“He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told—

Have not been wholly sung or said.”

—Longfellow.

The famous mallangong has a cousin almost as marvellous as itself. Its common name is the porcupine ant-eater; its scientific name is Echidna. When first the habits and anatomy of the duck-bill had been investigated the question arose: Was this a lonely species, having resemblancesto many animals and close relationships with none; sole representative of its order; as isolated as the hatteria? A search among the animals of Australia brought to light another relative.

“LOW DOWN IN THE SCALE.”

The new animal inhabited the rocky districts and was plentiful in New South Wales. There, among the mountains, it burrowed in loose sand brought down by the water-courses, or hid in crevices of the rock. It wore the quill overcoat of the sea-urchin, and when coiled to sleep looked not unlike a large specimen of that remarkable star-fish.[57]In size the echidna is about like the European hedge-hog (not our porcupine); it wears spurs like a rooster; it has the toothless jaws and the long flexible tongue of the ant-eater. It is entirely insectivorous in its diet, and from that and its quills, like a porcupine, it has its common name, “the porcupine ant-eater.”

The head of the echidna is small and pointed, its eyes are nearly hidden under its quills; so are its ears, which are merely holes without external appendages. The frontal bone of the skull is prolonged into a slim snout not unlike a slender bill. Near the end of this snout are the nostrils. This snout is mostly covered with thin skin. The mouth orifice is small, but large enough for all the creature’s needs; its manner of eating is to thrust out a long, flexible, delicate tongue covered with a glue-like substance. To this insects adhere, and the tongue being drawn in, the insects are swallowed. The echidna has no teeth; as its food is ants and small flies it needs none. The tongue and palate are covered with fine spines which no doubt crush the insect food.

On account of its diet this creature was formerly called the ant-eater, but that name has been dropped, as it belongs to a very different creature, the true ant-eater of the order Edentata.

The legs of the echidna are short and strong. The feet are not webbed, but are furnished with very powerful claws, and are admirably fitted for digging. The hind-feet have such a spur as was described in the chapter on the duck-bill.

The body of the echidna is covered with a close short fur; among this fur grow long spines thickly set, which project above the fur and entirely hide it. These spines are directed from the head backwards, but along the upper part of the body a large number of spines are also turned inward; thus they cross each other, and form a thorny, nearly impenetrable covering. The tail is very short, and is entirely hiddenby projecting spines. When the echidna rolls itself up the spines stand out like a bristling thorn hedge all over the ball which it forms, and this sharp armor is ample defence. The mouth of a dog, or the hand of a man endeavoring to seize the curled up echidna would be speedily withdrawn, pricked and bleeding.

The echidna seems quite aware of the defensive quality of its coat, for when alarmed it tranquilly curls up and defies attack. Sometimes, however, it prefers to take refuge in burrowing, and it will disappear as quickly as a mole or a razor-shell clam.

The echidna is less easily tamed than the mallangong; it is restive, and constantly tries to burrow out a path of escape. On the other hand it seems of a hardier constitution; it has been carried across the sea, and has lived for some years in foreign zoological gardens. The mallangong has never survived an ocean voyage, and has been seen in captivity only in its native country. When travelling at sea the echidna is deprived of its natural insect-diet, but lives very comfortably on sweet liquids.

The habits of the echidna are nocturnal. It generally sleeps most of the day, and comes out at dark to prowl for insects. We might at first consider this strange conduct, as the insects on which it feeds fly or crawl about during the day and hide by night. But this is just what our prickly hunter wishes. He is not content to pick up a toiling ant here, and another there. When the ants are snugly housed after sundown the echidna searches out their hills, tears open a hole in one side, thrusts in his long nose, and then runningout his slim, limber tongue he twists it here and there, and the ants and their white larvæ[58]bundles are collected by scores on its viscid surface.

Having gone from one ant-hill to another until its hunger is satisfied, or the morning dawns, or it grows weary, the echidna retires to its burrow or rock crevice. On the road it takes a drink of water, and makes a dessert of a liberal quantity of sand and mud. As fowls need some sharp bits of stone or shell in their gizzards to help grind up their food, the echidna seems to need in its stomach gritty material to grind the oily, insect bodies and keep them from packing. This need of some coarse substance with food is not confined to fowls and the echidna. Any sheep farmer will tell you that his sheep must be given what he calls “roughness” with their food. The “roughness” is ground or finely cut straw. If this is not given with corn and wheat, the sheep, however well fed, will become thin and weak, because their food is too rich to be well assimilated.[59]When sheep are grazed and not fed, they gather their “roughness” for themselves, in dry leaves, roots, stems, and little twigs.

In disposition the echidna is sluggish; seems to have no playfulness; does not object to having its nose gently stroked, but makes no friends, and except for its wonderful construction is not an interesting creature.

In Tasmania there is the short-spined echidna, which hasmuch shorter and weaker spines and much thicker fur than the one just described. In 1877 a new species living on a mountain thirty-five hundred feet high was discovered in New Guinea. It also had fewer spines and thicker, rougher fur. This mountaineer of the echidna family is much larger than his relatives of lower regions.

No fossil remains of any great age have been found to prove that these animals are of distant antiquity. We cannot tell in what age they entered into existence. No remains of types connecting them with lower vertebrates on the one hand, or higher mammals on the other, have been discovered. The only fossil portion of an echidna that has been thus far secured is a shoulder-bone, found in a bed of bones belonging to extinct species of marsupial, or pouched animals. This shoulder-bone indicated an animal larger than any living echidna.

One echidna, called the tachyglossus of Van Dieman’s land, eats grass and tender leaves as well as insects. It lives less among rocks, as it is very fond of burrowing. This specimen of the echidna is a marvellous digger. If disturbed it begins to make a great tearing of earth with its five-toed feet, and sinks out of sight almost as if it went down in water. Perhaps you have seen a crab perform this feat, keeping its eyes fixed on you until, presto! it has vanished as if by enchantment.[60]

The echidna, like its relatives, is a milk-giving, egg-laying animal. Only one egg is laid at a time, and that is very small. The egg is tucked into a fold of the mother’sskin, not a pouch such as the marsupials have, but a long fold. Here it is kept warm until it hatches. Until it has attained over one-third of its growth the mother nourishes the young creature with milk.

The Echidnidæ have all very quick tongues, which dart in and out of their tube-like mouths rapid as the play of a snake’s forked tongue. Their mouths are very soft and delicate, and in burrowing the nose is carefully shielded, while the claw-armed fore-feet do most of the work. Owing to the quick movements of the tongue some naturalists have abandoned the name echidna, which refers to the thorny coat, and give the name tachy-glossus, “quick-tongued,” to the entire family.

FOOTNOTES:[57]See Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 40.[58]Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 2.[59]Cows fed entirely on grain and roots will gnaw at fence-posts and palings in an effort to get the woody, coarse substance supplied by coarse grass stems in their ordinary hay food.[60]Nature Reader, No. 1, Lessons 1-5.

[57]See Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 40.

[58]Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 2.

[59]Cows fed entirely on grain and roots will gnaw at fence-posts and palings in an effort to get the woody, coarse substance supplied by coarse grass stems in their ordinary hay food.

[60]Nature Reader, No. 1, Lessons 1-5.

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