This remarkable creature is found in Southern and Eastern Australia, and also in Tasmania. It is not at all uncommon, but is seldom seen, for it spends most of its time in the water, or else in its burrow, which is always made in the bank of a pool or stream. This burrow is generally a long one, running to a distance of forty or even fifty feet, and terminates in a large chamber, which is used as a nursery. And it always has two entrances, one below the surface of the water and one above, so that if the animal is alarmed in any way it can run in by one door and out again by the other.
Two eggs are laid by this most curious creature. They measure about three-quarters of an inch in length, and are enclosed in a tough white shell. How they are hatched nobody seems quite to know; but when the little ones first make their appearance they are quite blind and quite naked, and have hardly any beaks at all.
When fully grown the duckbill is about eighteen inches long from the end of the snout to the tip of the tail.
BIRDS
CHAPTER XX
BIRDS OF PREY
We have now first to think of the great class of the birds, which are distinguished from all other living creatures by having their bodies covered with feathers.
These feathers serve a double purpose.