130 MARSUPIAL QUADRUPEDS OF NEW HOLLAND. 



Art.V. — Observations on the History and Classification of the 

 Marsupial Quadrupeds of New Holland. By W. Ogilby, Esq. 

 M.A., &c. &c. 



[The following " Observations" form the introduction to a paper on the 

 " General History and Description of Marsupial Animals," which was read 

 at different meetings of the Linnean Society, between the 6th of December 

 1831, and the 3rd of April, 1832. Its design was to describe the species of 

 Australian quadrupeds, at that period very imperfectly known in this 

 country, and of which the Linnean Society possessed the only collection at 

 all approaching to completeness, even in generic forms : but the imperfect 

 materials at my disposal for the illustration of the genus Macropus, first 

 induced me to postpone the completion of my memoir till I should have 

 an opportunity of examining the Continental Museums ; and when this 

 did happen, the advances which British zoologists had made in the know- 

 ledge of Marsupial species, rendered my original design in a great measure 

 useless. Great accessions had been made in the interim, both to the Bri- 

 tish Museum and to that of the Zoological Society, especially to the latter, 

 at the different meetings of which I had repeated opportunities of directing 

 the attention of the Fellows to the generic characters of these animals, and 

 of describing many new species. 



During the progress of my inquiries, I had, besides, occasion to alter my 

 opinion as to the integrity of the group Marsupialia as a natural order of 

 mammals. One of the principal objects of my original paper was to re- 

 form the very arbitrary classification, or division into minor groups, which 

 the French naturalists had introduced into this department of mammalogy ; 

 and though I am no longer disposed to view the principal group itself in 

 the same light as formerly, I still think the publication of my labours at 

 that period may be of advantage to science, not only as a record of the state 

 of our knowledge upon this subject at the period in question, but likewise 

 because a simple and natural classification, admitting of ready application to 

 practical purposes, is likely to be of great use to colonial enquirers. In- 

 deed I have the satisfaction to think that this object has been in some mea- 

 sure accomplished already, though to a limited extent, by means of manu- 

 script copies of the classification in question, and lists of species, with which 

 I furnished various gentlemen about to visit the different Australian colo- 

 nies; among others Mr. Allan Cunningham, to whom I am happy to have 

 this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations for very copious details 

 relating to the habits and economy of these animals ; Mr. George Bennett, 

 (through the medium of our mutual friend Prof. Owen) ; Mr. Gould, &c] 



Long ere British enterprise had planted the arts and cultiva- 

 tion of civilized life upon its solitary shores, at a period when 

 its very existence was inferred only from the conjectures of 

 theoretical geographers, or the scarcely less vague reports of 

 mariners, whom accident or misfortune drove out of their usu- 

 al course, the continent of New Holland, the Terra Australia 

 Incognita of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, divided 

 the attention of Europe and the interest of the curious with 

 the recently discovered Western Hemisphere, the land at once 

 of fiction and obscurity, of boundless wealth and still more 



