MARSUPIAL QUADRUPEDS OF NEW HOLLAND. 131 



boundless cupidity. Even at the present day, when its coasts 

 have been partially surveyed and its productions explored, 

 the primitive interest which attended the discovery of this 

 new world remains, in a great measure, unabated ; and the 

 statesman and the philosopher equally look towards the shores 

 of Australia, as the theatre upon which nature is expected to 

 develope the most wonderful principles both of moral and 

 physical science. The rapid progress and growing impor- 

 tance of the colonies which have been planted in that coun- 

 try, — the repeatedly baffled attempts to explore its internal 

 geography, — the savage and degraded condition of its primi- 

 tive inhabitants, — and finally, the strange and anomalous 

 forms of its natural productions, — are well calculated to ar- 

 rest the attention and excite the surprise of the most oppo- 

 sitely-constituted minds ; to gratify the philanthropist by the 

 contemplation of the greatest and rarest of moral phenomena, 

 — the most degraded vice and misery converted into honest 

 and contented prosperity, — and that too, upon a scale never 

 dreamt of by former ages, — and to excite the awe and reve- 

 rence of the philosopher whilst he admires, in new forms and 

 unknown beings, the inexhaustible variety of nature's works, 

 and recognizes the infinite wisdom and omnipotence of the 

 Great Creator. 



To gratify a small portion of this very rational curiosity, — 

 to trace the history and describe the forms of the most inte- 

 resting, though, at the same time, the most limited, class of 

 the productions of this strange land, — to investigate the rela- 

 tions, and establish the zoological characters of Australian 

 Marsupials, 1 — is the object of the present essay; and if, in 

 this attempt, I have been in some cases less successful than 

 I could have wished, — as well from the imperfect opportuni- 

 ties which I have enjoyed, of examining these animals in the 

 living state, as from the brief and often confused notices of 

 colonial writers, — I venture to hope that my labours may at 

 least have the merit of directing the attention of colonial ob- 

 servers to this interesting subject, and of thus forming the ba- 

 sis of more valuable researches. 



1 1 have substituted this form of the plural, throughout my paper, instead 

 of the more usual Latin terminations, Mammalia, and Marsupialia, as more 

 congenial to the spirit of our language. The word Mammal, from mam- 

 ma, a breast or udder, like Animal, from anima, mind or spirit, was formed 

 by Linnaeus to denote those animals which are furnished with mammary 

 glands. As we have no term of similar import in the English language, I 

 venture to propose the adoption of this, with its plural, mammals, as of 

 equally classical formation, and more agreeable to the genius of our verna- 

 cular tongue, than the French word mammifcres. 



