The Platypus: its Discovery, Zoological Position, Form and Characteristics, Habits, Life History, etc

Abstract

AS its amplified title indicates, this work does not set out to be a systematic descriptive scientific treatise on Ornithorhynchus anatinus. It is true that it necessarily includes incidentally a good deal in the way of the morphology and physiology of the animal, but it is entirely in accord with the scheme of the author that detail appropriate to a more academic and systematic treatment of structure and function should be either omitted or subordinated to his main purpose. The book is pre-eminently the product of a genuine field naturalist—a type unfortunately less common than it used to be—an amateur, in the proper and literal sense of a devoted lover of the animals he knows so well.

The Platypus its Discovery, Zoological Position, Form and Characteristics, Habits, Life History, etc.

By Sir Harry Burrell. Pp. ix + 227 + 35 plates. (Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson, Ltd.; London: The Australian Book Co., 1927.) 25s.