134 MAMMALIA. 



or less yellowish brown. It is found in King's Island to the 

 south of New Holland, where it lives in its burrow. Its flesh 

 excellent.(l) 



ORDER V. 



RODENTIA. 



We have just seen, in the Phalangers, canini so very small^ 

 that we cannot consider tliem as such. The nutriment of these 

 animals, accordingly, is chiefly derived from the vegetable 

 kingdom. Their intestines are long and their caecum ample; 

 and the Kanguroos, which have no canini whatever, subsist 

 upon vegetables only. The Phascolomys might stand first in 

 that series of animals of which we are about to speak, and 

 which have a system of mastication still less complete. 



Two large incisors in each jaW, separated from the molars 

 by an empty space, cannot seize a living prey nor tear flesh ; 

 they cannot even cut the food, but they serve to file, and by 

 continued labour, to reduce it into separate molecules, in a 

 word, to gnaw it ; hence the term Rodentia or Gnawers, 

 which is applied to animals of this order. It is thus that they 

 successfully attack the hardest substances, frequently feeding 

 on wood and the bark of trees. The more easily to accom- 

 plish this object, the incisors have no thick enamel except in 

 front, so that their posterior edges wearing away faster than 

 the anterior, they are always naturally sloped. Their pris- 

 matic form causes them to grow from the root as fast as they 

 wear away at the edge ; and this tendency to increase in 



(1) M. Bass has described an animal, externally similar to the Phascolomys, and 

 to which he also gives the name of fFon; to, but which has six incisors, two canines 

 and sixteen molars in each jaw. If thei'e is no erroneous combination of the two 

 different descriptions, it will form an additional subgenus to place near the Pera- 

 meles. lUiger has already established it under the name oiAmhlotis, from itfA^xmTVi, 

 abortus. See Petersb. Mem. 18031806, p. 444, and the Bulletin des Sc. No. 72, 

 An. XI. 



