Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PLAT'Y-PUS, n.

Two quadrupeds of New Holland, now called Ornithorrhynchus paradoxus and O. fuscus. They are monotrematous edentate mammals, the body covered with hair, a bill like a duck, teeth planted in a kind of gums, webbed feet with a venomous spur on the hinder leg, connected with a reservoir of poison in the soles of the feet, which is supplied by glands situated by the side of the spine, just above the pelvis.