458 Mr. Morean’s Description of the Anatomy 
inquiries to a satisfactory termination, I am induced to state 
briefly the result of my observations, before I describe the ana- 
tomical peculiarities in the mammary organs, to which I have 
already referred, and which were made known to me by a dis- 
section of the young animal in question. 
In speaking of the reddish brown secretion of the pouch upon 
a former occasion, I stated that it was very much diminished, 
or altogether suspended, at the time the young animal is lodged 
within the part. I have now ascertained from repeated exami- 
nations, that in the unimpregnated state this secretion is always 
darker in colour, and more viscid in consistence than during 
gestation ; that after the young has been brought into the pouch 
it becomes of a lighter red and more fluid, and that when the 
young has dropped from the teat and is perfectly covered with 
hair the secretion cannot be detected by its colour, although, 
from a slight moisture of the interior of the bag, it is probable 
that it still exists in an altered condition. Its use in lubricating 
the imperfectly formed animal and the cavity in which it is 
contained, as a means of preventing friction between the two, 
must be obvious to every one. After I was enabled to examine 
the pouch as freely as I wished, my first endeavour was to 
ascertain whether a marsupial animal so imperfectly formed, 
and in such an immature state, could be considered as existing 
in a condition analogous to that of the suckling young of other 
mammiferous quadrupeds. There can be no doubt that such 
is not the case when it is first attached to the teat; for then I 
have already shown, that in its state of imperfect organization 
its nourishment is injected by the mother through the teat into 
its adhering mouth, instead of being extracted by the young 
itself, as in the case of other mammiferous quadrupeds. I may 
also state, that when, in the very early periods of extra-uterine 
existence, the marsupial fetus has been separated from the 
teat, 
