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New Holland so far as we observed is furnished with but a few animals, particularly mammalia, in proportion to its size extent. The quadrupeds most abounding are the genera macropus and didelphis, the anatomical differances in which are so very obvious few, and immaterial as not to merit an enumeration. Indeed, the only one is in the general external form; with and that in the abdominal viscera corresponding to the teeth.
The anatomy of the kanguroo is too well known for me to say any thing of it here; that of the platypus anatinus or ornithoryncus paradox is but little known and which I am sorry to say has not been in my power to make better known; that of an animal which I believe has been ranked as an opossum by the name of ursine and known at Port Jackson by the natives' name, wombat. Of it I have a little to say, and also something of another animal resembling the opossum but differing materially in teeth which approximate those of the mures. It is named by the natives buo buo.
Mr. Brown acquainted me you had suggested to him in a letter some peculiarities regarding the female platypus anatinus, which had given rise to some curious but uncertain ideas concerning its mode of generation. I had long anxiously wished to examine the female but of four I was able to procure, all were males, and so putrid as scarcely to admit of the slightest examination. I, however, made myself master of the following particulars, which, allowing they may be already known, the testimony of my observations will still tend to confirm.