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A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga830
Monotremes. These Monotremes may be called half-bird and half-mammal.
One of the most characteristic of their family is the Ornithorhynchus, or Duckbill,
which the early naturalists first thought was a fraud of the taxidermists,
or bird-stuffers, and then, when finally convinced, deemed it a “freak-ofnature.”
But it is not a freak creature, but a “connecting-link” between the
two great families of creatures. This animal presents a startling appearance
to the observer who witnesses it for the first time. It resembles a beaver,
having a soft furry coat, but also has a horny, flat bill like a duck, its feet being
webbed, but also furnished with claws projecting over the edge of the webfoot.
It lays eggs in an underground nest—two eggs at a time, which are like
the eggs of birds, inasmuch as they contain not only the protoplasm from
which the embryo is formed, but also the “yolk,” on which the embryo feeds
until hatched. After the young Duck-bill is hatched, it feeds from teatless
glands in the mother’s body, the milk being furnished by the mother by a
peculiar process. Consider this miracle—an animal which lays eggs and then
when her young are hatched nourishes them with milk. The milk-glands in the
mother are elementary “breasts.”
The above-mentioned animal is found in Australia, the land of many
strange forms and “connecting-links,” which have survived there while
in other parts of the globe they have vanished gradually from existence,
crowded out by the more perfectly evolved forms. Darwin has called these
surviving forms “living fossils.” In that same land is also found the Echidna
or spiny ant-eater, which lays an egg and then hatches it in her pouch, after
which she nourishes it on milk, in a manner similar to that of the Duck-bill.
This animal, like the Duck-bill, is a Monotreme.
Scientists are divided in theories as to whether the Monotremes are
actually descended directly from the Reptiles or Birds, or whether there was
a common ancestor from which Reptiles and Birds and Mammals branched
off. But this is not important, for the relationship between Reptiles, Birds
and Mammals is clearly proven. And the Monotremes are certainly one of
the surviving forms of the intermediate stages.