Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/554

530, or leave it in the hands of the aboriginals of Australia, who alone of all the people in the world know how to handle it."

"That is true as to the return-boomerang," said Doctor Bronson when Fred read the foregoing account, "but not of the non-returning one. According to those who have carefully studied the subject, such a weapon was used by the ancient Egyptians and by the Dravidian races of India. The Moqui Indians of Arizona and New Mexico have a form of boomerang for killing rabbits, and a similar weapon is said to be used by some of the tribes of California Indians. The Moqui boomerang resembles the Australian one in its general shape, but it is not a returning one. It gyrates along the surface of the ground and is fatal to a rabbit twenty-five or thirty yards away."

"There's something else peculiar to Australia that you've forgotten," remarked the Doctor, after a slight pause.

"What is that?"

"It is the platypus, or duck-billed mole," said the Doctor, "the paradoxical animal of Australia."

"We had not forgotten him," Frank responded, "though we have not yet written a description of this singular creature. He seems to be the connecting link between bird and beast, as he has the body of the mole or rat and the bill and webbed feet of the duck. The female lays eggs like a bird, but it suckles its young, which no bird was ever known to do. The one we saw at Melbourne was larger than the largest water-rat; they told us that it lives in a hole which it digs for itself on the banks of the rivers, is very sensitive to sound, and hard to catch. Its fur is as fine as sealskin, and if it were larger it would be systematically hunted for its skin."

"When the first specimens were taken to Europe," said Doctor Bronson, "it was thought to be a hoax like the Feejee mermaid, and it was some time before the naturalists were convinced of its genuineness. When its existence was officially acknowledged, it received the name of ornithorhynchus."