236 FIRST LESSONS IN ZOOLOGY. 



the soft palate, as in the Cetacea, and thus respiration goes 

 on freely, while the milk passes, on each side of the laryn- 

 geal cone, into the oesophagus" (Huxley). 



Long after the young are weaned, and when they are 

 partly grown, they run into the pouch upon the approach 

 of danger, or enter it when tired, and, there safely en- 

 sconced, present a comical sight, peeping out to see if the 

 danger is past. 



The opossums inhabit North and South America. They 

 have a long, nearly naked, scaly tail, and they walk, like 

 bears, on the sole of the whole foot. The species range in 

 size from being a little larger than a mouse to the size of a 

 cat, and they live on birds and their eggs, reptiles and in- 

 sects. The Virginian opossum (Didelphys Viryiniana) 

 (Fig. 233) lives for the most part in trees. 



There are squirrel-like flying marsupials (Pet-anna*), 

 marsupial rats, marsupial bears, and marsupial ant-eaters 

 (Myrmecabius), but the most characteristic Australian ani- 

 mals are the different kinds of kangaroo (Fig. 236). 



The largest species, Macroptis yiyanteiix, is 1.8 metres, 

 or nearly six feet, long, being as large as a sheep and some- 

 times weighing 140 pounds. Like other kangaroos, it goes 

 in herds, and moves by a succession of long leaps, clearing 

 obstacles seven or eight feet high. 



All marsupials are stupid, low in intelligence, and, in 

 those which eat flesh, of vicious temper. With the excep- 

 tion of the opossums, all are confined to Australia, New 

 Zealand, and New Guinea. 



All the pouched mammals, both the spiny ant-eater and 

 opossum, with their allies, are very old-fashioned animals, 

 and the earliest mammals which appeared on the earth's 

 surface were more nearly related to them than to any higher 

 beasts. But the primitive kinds were inferior in the size 

 and shape of the brain and in intelligence to those now liv- 

 ing; they mostly perished to make way for the more im- 

 proved types, which we are next to consider. 



