come in?"

"I don't know," said Dot.

"Of course you don't replied the Platypus, contemptuously, Humans are so ignorant! That's because they are so new. When they have existed a few more million years, they will be more like us of old families; they will respect quiet, exclusive living, like that of the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus, and will not be so inquisitive, pushing, and dangerous as now. The age will come when they will understand, and will cease to write books, and there will be peace for everyone."

The Kangaroo now thought it a good opportunity to change the subject, and gently introduced the topic of Dot's lost way, saying how she had found the little girl, and had taken care of her ever since.

The Platypus did not seem interested, and yawned more than once whilst the Kangaroo spoke.

"The question is," concluded the Kangaroo, "whom shall I ask to find it? Someone must know where it is."

"Of course," said the Platypus, yawning again, without so much as putting its web foot in front of its bill, which Dot thought very rude, or else very ancient manners. "Little Human," it said, "tell me what kind of bush creatures come about your burrow."

"We live in a cottage," she said, but seeing that the Platypus did not like to be corrected, and that the Kangaroo looked quite shocked at her doing so, she hurriedly described the creatures she had seen there. She said there were Crickets, Grasshoppers, Mice, Lizards, Swallows, Opossums, Flying Foxes, Kookooburras, Magpies, and Shepherd's Companions——

"Stop!" interrupted the Platypus, with a wave of its web foot; "that is the right one."

"Who?" asked the Kangaroo and Dot anxiously, together.

"The bird you call Shepherd's Companion. Some of you call it Rickety Dick, or Willy Wagtail." Turning to the Kangaroo especially, it continued, "If you can bring yourself to speak to anything so obtrusive and gossiping, without any ancestry or manners whatever, you will be able to learn all you need from that bird. Humans and Wagtails fraternise together. They're both post-glacial."

"I knew you could advise me," said the Kangaroo gratefully.

"Oh! Platypus, how clever you are!" cried Dot, clapping her hands.

Directly Dot had spoken she saw that she had offended the queer little creature before her. It raised itself with an air of offended dignity that was unmistakable.

"The name Platypus is insulting," it remarked, looking at the child severely, "it means BROAD-FOOTED, a vulgar pseudonym which could only have emanated from the brutally coarse expressions of a Human. My name is Ornithorhyncus Paradoxus. Besides, even if my front feet can expand, they can also contract; see! as narrow and refined as a bird's claw. Observe, too, that my hind feet are narrow, and like a seal's fin, though it has been described as a mole's foot."

As the Platypus spoke, and thrust out its strangely different feet, the Kangaroo edged a little closer to Dot and whispered in her ear. "It's getting angry, and is beginning to use long words; do be careful what you say or it will be terrible!"

"I beg your pardon," said Dot; "I did not wish to hurt your feelings, Para—Pa—ra—dox—us."

"ORNITHORHYNCHUS Paradoxus, if you please," insisted the little creature. "How would you like it if your name was Jones-Smith-Jones, and I called you one Jones, or one Smith, and did not say both the Joneses and the Smiths? You have no idea how sensitive our race is. You Humans have no feelings at all compared with ours. Why, my fifth pair of nerves are larger than a man's! Humans get on my nerves dreadfully!" it ended in disgusted accents.

"She did not mean to hurt you," said the gentle Kangaroo, soothingly. "Is there anything we can do to make you feel comfortable again?"

"There is nothing you can do," Sighed the Platypus, now mournful and depressed. "I must sing. Only music can quiet my nerves. I will sing a little threnody composed by myself, about the good old days of this world before the Flood." And as it spoke, the Platypus moved into an upright position amongst the tussock grass, and after a little cough opened its bill to sing.

The Kangaroo kept very close to Dot, and warned her to be very attentive to the song, and not to interrupt it on any account. Almost before the Kangaroo had ceased to whisper in her ear, Dot heard this strange song, sung to the most peculiar tune she had ever heard, and in the funniest of little squeaky voices.

The fairest Iguanodon reposed upon the shore
Extended lay her beauteous form, a hundred feet and more.
The sun, with rays flammivomous, beat on the blue-black sand;
And sportive little Saurians disported on the strand
But oft the Iguanodon reproved them in their glee,
And said, "Alas! this Saurian Age is not what it should be!"

Then, forth from that archaic sea, the Ichthyosaurus
Uprose upon his finny wings, with neocomian fuss,
"Oh, Iguanodon!" he cried, as he approached the shore,
"Why art thou thus dysthynic, love? Come, rise with me, and soar,
Or leave these estuarian seas, and wander in the grove;
Behold! a bird-like reptile fish is dying for thy love!"

Then, through the dark coniferous grove they wandered side by side,
The tender Iguanodon and Ichthyosaurian bride
And through the enubilious air, the carboniferous breeze,
Awoke, with their amphibious sighs, the silence in the trees.
"To think," they cried, botaurus-toned, "when ages intervene,
Our osseous fossil forms will be in some museum seen!"

Bemoaning thus, by dumous path, they crushed the cycad's growth,
And many a crash, and thunder, marked the progress of them both.
And when they reached the estuary, the excandescent sun
Was setting o'er the hefted sea; their saurian day was done.
Then raised they paraseline eyes unto the flaming moon,
And wept—the Neocomian Age was passing all too soon!
Oh, Iguanodon! oh, earth! oh, Ichthyosaurus
Oh, Melanocephalous saurians! Oh! oh! oh!

(Here the Platypus was sobbing)

Oh, Troglyodites obscure—oh! oh!

At this point of the song, the poor Platypus, whose voice had trembled with increasing emotion and sobbing in each verse, broke down, overcome by the extreme sensitiveness of its fifth pair of nerves and the sadness of its song, and wept in terrible grief.

The gentle Kangaroo was also deeply moved, seeing the Platypus in such sorrow, and Dot mastered her aversion to touching cold, damp fur, and stroked the little creature's head.

The Platypus seemed much soothed by their sympathy, but hurriedly bade them farewell. It said it must try and restore its shattered fifth pair of nerves by a few hydrophilus latipalpus beetles for lunch, and a sleep.

It wearily dragged itself down to the edge of the pool, and looked backwards to the Kangaroo and Dot, who called out "Good-bye" to it. Its eyes were dim with tears, for it was still thinking of the Iguanodon and ichthyosaurus, and of the good old days before the Flood.

"It breaks my heart to think that they are all fossils," it exclaimed, mournfully shaking its head. "Fossils!" it repeated, as it plunged into the pool and swam away. "Fossils!" it cried once more, in far, faint accents; and a second later it dived out of sight.

For several moments after the Platypus had disappeared from view, the Kangaroo and Dot remained just as it had left them. Then Dot broke the silence.

"Dear Kangaroo," said she, "what was that song about?"

"I don't know," said the animal wistfully, "no one ever knows what the Platypus sings about."

"It was very sad," said Dot.

"Dreadfully sad!" sighed the Kangaroo; "but the Platypus is a most learned and interesting creature," she added hastily. "Its conversation and songs are most edifying; everyone in the bush admits it."

"Does anyone understand its conversation?" asked Dot.