From Peter Beveridge   8 September 1864

Tyntynder1 8/9/64

My dear Dr2

I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th Inst:3 and feel pleased at being able to give the required information.

The Platypus is not an Oviparous animal therefore the Gentleman writing from "Woods Point"4 must have been made a fool of by some one, or else he has mistaken a Turtle for an Ornithor[r]hynchus this latter […] takes the cake.

The Platypus brings fourth5 her young in the same manner as a cat or dog, the young are born blind and are Suckled for almost two months; after that their dam feeds them on young fish which she catches with great facility. She makes her nest under ground the opening to which is always under water; there are no Platypus in this portion of the river Murray but the Wakool and Edwards Rivers6 have plenty of them.

The Porcupine or Great Australian Ant-Eater,7 and the Water Rat of the Murray River, also produce their young blind, and suckle them in the same manner as the Platypus; and the whole of these animals belong to the Monotrema[r]ta Genus.

The Fetus of the Kangaroo and other Marsupia, exudes thro' some of the mammillary ducts in a germ like form, till it arrives at the outside of the teat where it becomes firmly attached, and gradually assumes the Shape of its dam.

This latter is of course opposed by the generallity of Savans8 but it is strictly true nevertheless; all my information on these subjects I have from the Aborigines, and they never err in matters pertaining to the animal life in their respective districts, therefore you can place implicit reliance on what I have said herein.

Did you send the cask of spirits as proposed, for preserving the collection of reptiles that I promised to preserve for you this Summer? If you did it has not yet arrived.9

Trusting that the information herein contained will be of service to you I am

My dear Dr

Yours most Sincerely

Peter Beveridge

1
Beveridge lived at Tyntyndyer Homestead, near Swan Hill, Vic (Orchard, 1997).
2
It is almost certain that this letter was addressed to Mueller, who reports (M to R. Owen, 25 September 1864) having written to Beveridge to seek further information, and that he encloses a letter.
3
Letter not found.
4
Vic. See M to R. Owen, 25 September 1864.
5
forth?
6
Anabranches of the Murray River in southern NSW.
7
i.e. Echidna.
8
Savants is written in another hand above this word. For an account of the colonists’ belief that the young of the kangaroo was born through the nipple, or concieved in the pouch, see Moyal (1976), pp 74, 85 (n. 20).
9
For M's acquisition of zoological specimens and the use made of them, see Lucas (2013a, c), (2014).

Please cite as “FVM-64-09-08,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/64-09-08