. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE DUCK-MOLES. 597 propagation. "The first Echidna which I received," says lie, "I put under a box in my study; but that treatment did not seem to please it at all. It persist- ently and continuously endeavored to escape from its prison, and where there was enough space between the floor and the edge of the box, it constantly put out its long tongue in an exploring way. Finally it succeeded, during the night, in lifting the heavy box and libe
. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammals; Animal behavior. THE DUCK-MOLES. 597 propagation. "The first Echidna which I received," says lie, "I put under a box in my study; but that treatment did not seem to please it at all. It persist- ently and continuously endeavored to escape from its prison, and where there was enough space between the floor and the edge of the box, it constantly put out its long tongue in an exploring way. Finally it succeeded, during the night, in lifting the heavy box and liberating itself. For a long time I looked for it in vain. At last, to my great surprise, I found it in another box about sixteen inches high, which was open above and half filled with pieces of gold quartz the size of a Man's fist, and wrapped in paper; this seemed to impress it as a more fitting sleeping place than the level surface of the ground. Keep- ing this experience of the climbing ability of the animals in mind, I put two other Porcupine Ant- eaters in a barrel about three feet high and twenty inches wide, and placed it in the spacious basement of the museum building in Adelaide. An escape from this prison, having the usual shape of barrels, seemed impossible. Yet one of the animals suc- ceeded in escaping. After days of search I found it, again in the barrel with its companion. It may have heard the latter, and worked its way up to the edge of the barrel between that receptacle and the wall and then dropped down into it. As I intended dissecting the animals, and therefore wished to free them from all interfer- ing fat, I starved them, and found that they could fast at least a month without any visible impairment of their health. I found the intestinal tract of one of them, killed after a six weeks' fast, filled exclusively with sand, to which the animal had access. This was a hint in regard to the prep- aration of food for these animals when in confinement. If it be giv
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectmammals, bookyear1895
