458 Mr. Morgan'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 foetus has been separated from the 



teat, 



