ORDER II MONOTREMATA.
(Beaked Marsupials.)
We have now arrived at creatures of so strange and anomalous structure, as to have given rise to much discussion among men of science concerning their true affinities, and the Class of animals to which they properly belonged. When the most singular of these animals was first received in England, the union of a beak closely resembling that of some Ducks, with the body of a fur-clothed quadruped, was so startling a novelty, that the utmost suspicion was roused of its genuineness; and though repeated and careful examinations of the specimen were instituted, even to the maceration of the suspected organs in water, it was not until other individuals were sent from New Holland, that zoologists were satisfied that no clever artifice had been employed in "making up" the specimen.
Recent investigations have proved that the peculiar organization of these animals is not confined to their external form; and if more extended inquiries have familiarized us with their structure, and so diminished our wonder at its unwonted combinations, they have brought more fully to view, in many anatomical particulars, that these creatures are indeed unique, and possess peculiarities which broadly separate them from all other known animals.
From the nature of these peculiarities, they
