tunnels of great intricacy in
the bands of lazy rivers, and because of its paradoxical nature and
appearance has caused many strange stories to originate about its habits
and methods of propagation. It has the beak of a duck and waddles not
unlike this bird, but, like other mammals, it gives birth to its young,
and does not lay eggs, as is so often claimed for it. When swimming it
looks like a bunch of floating weeds or grass.

Its home is always on the banks of a stream, and is always provided with
two entrances: one below the surface of the water, and the other above.
This insures escape in case of enemies. The main tunnel or road to the
home is sometimes fifty feet in length, and no engineer could devise a
more deceptive approach; it winds up and down like a huge serpent, to
the right, and to the left, and is so annoyingly variable in its sinuous
course that even the natives have great trouble in digging the duckbill
out of its nest.

The nest is oval in form, and is well-carpeted with dry weeds and grass.
Here the young reside on soft beds until they are large enough to care
for themselves. There are from one to four in each nest.

There are no greater architects in the universe than may be found among
the coral-polypes. These interesting little animals of the deep have
been much misunderstood, and have sometimes had the erroneous
designation of "insect" bestowed upon them. The word "insect" has been
applied in a very loose and general sense in other days; but naturalists
and scientists should see to it that the use of this term be corrected
in reference to these wonderful coral-architects, and that no informed
person refer to them except as animals. Even poets have been guilty of
propagating the most erroneous ideas about the nature and works of these
sea-builders. Montgomery, in his _Pelican Island_, makes statements that
are shocking to an intelligent thinker, and which no scientist can
excuse on the ground of poetical license. "The poetry of this excellent
author," says Dana, "is good, but the facts nearly all errors--if
literature allows of such an incongruity." Think of coral-animals as
being referred to as shapeless worms that "writhe and shrink their
tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions"! These deep-sea builders
manufacture or secrete from their own bodies the coral substance out of
which the great reefs are built. It is a part of their life work and
nature, as a flower produces its own colours and sha