56 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



portance to it, and yet they present us with what seems 

 to be the initial, incipient condition of the character which 

 becomes so very strongly marked in the kangaroo. It 

 is more marked in the phalangers than in the wombat, 

 but still we can hardly deem its condition such as to be 

 of much, if any, importance to the life of those animals. 

 But in the bandicoots it is so much marked that it may 

 be of much use to them, and in the kangaroos it can 

 hardly be otherwise. Nevertheless we cannot consider 

 that the forms which possess this character in a slight 

 degree are descendants of kangaroo-like creatures. Yet 

 even if we did, we must, on the popular view of evolution, 

 admit that the latter inherited it from antecedent un- 

 known forms in which it was very slightly marked. It 

 would seem then, that here we have a character which 

 has become gradually more and more developed, but at 

 starting was of no appreciable use to the creatures 

 possessing it. It would seem to have been developed for 

 the service of other forms of life which were destined to 

 come into existence at a later period. 



But this character has been carried out to an even 

 more exaggerated degree than in the kangaroo, and we 

 will speak of the animal in which it is so exaggerated, 

 and of one or two species besides, before we proceed to 

 determine the precise position occupied by the American 

 species, so that we may obtain a good answer to the 

 question, "What is an opossum " ? 



The creature, the foot of which we have just referred 

 to, is a very singular animal, which was discovered by Sir 

 Thomas Mitchell on the banks of the Murray River. It 

 was first described in 1 838, and named Cheer 'opus (Fig. 14). 

 It is a slender-snouted, long-aared creature, less than twelve 

 inches in length from the nose to the root of the tail, and 

 with exceedingly slender and delicate legs and feet. Its 



