460 Mr. Morgan's Description of the Anatomy 



circumstances was necessary to the existence of this animal. 

 The result of such experiments has proved to me, that in this 

 advanced state it is decidedly a voluntary agent, and must be 

 considered as having outlived any intermediate state of exist- 

 ence between foetal and perfect life ; for in all my experiments 

 I found that the young one, at the age I have mentioned, was 

 respiring, and capable of applying its mouth to the teat of the 

 mother. At what earlier period the same artificial separation 

 may be effected without destruction of its life, I must leave as a 

 question for others to decide. In the beginning of February 

 the young one was completely covered with hair ; and at this 

 time the red secretion from the interior of the pouch, which had 

 for many weeks been gradually diminishing, was no longer per- 

 ceptible. In the following June it left the pouch for the first 

 time, and being somewhat awkward in finding its way back 

 again, an assistance was afforded by the mother in the following 

 way. The parent bent down until her belly nearly touched the 

 ground ; she then introduced her fore paws into the opening of 

 the pouch, and thus pulling the aperture wide open at the same 

 time that it was lowered nearly to a level with the ground, a 

 very easy access was afforded for its tenant. This was fre- 

 quently repeated for the first month after the young had left 

 the bag. 



Having dissected a suckling kangaroo in which two elon- 

 gated and perfect marsupial teats were apparently found to 

 have conveyed nourishment to a single young one, I was sur- 

 prised to find that, in the animal to which I am now referring, 

 only one and the same teat was affording a supply of milk 

 throughout the whole period of suckling, this being the one to 

 which the foetus was adherent when first received into the 

 pouch. 



The 



