CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Order I. Marsupialia, Marsupials. 



The Marsupials or Pouched Mammals have at the present time a 

 most restricted distribution, all the families of the order but one 

 being found in the Australian region, viz., Australia, Tasmania, 

 New Guinea, Celebes, and smaller contiguous islands. The one 

 family, Didelphyidae, foreign to this portion of the world is confined 

 to the more southern parts of North America, and to South America. 

 Marsupials are peculiar in the majority of cases, for having a fold of 

 skin about the milk glands which forms a pouch, and in which the 

 undeveloped young are placed and nourished. The species vary greatly 

 in size, from the giant kangaroo, taller than many men, to little 

 creatures not much larger than a mouse. One, Chironectes minimus, an 

 opossum from Central America, Guiana, and Brazil, is aquatic in 

 its habits, with large webbed hind feet, and it feeds on fish and other 

 marine creatures which it secures in the manner of the otter. Some 

 opossums, however, are not provided with a pouch, but the young 

 are nevertheless fastened to the teats of the mother in a similar man- 

 ner as are those whose parents possess this sac, and when they are 

 sufficiently grown to leave the teats, they are transferred to their 

 mother's back, where they maintain their position by wrapping their 

 tails around that of the female, which is elevated over her back and 

 carried there for this purpose. 



Fam. I. IMdelpliyidK*. Opossum*. 



Limbs rather short; feet with five distinct toes; tail prehensile. 

 Pouch sometimes present. Habits arboreal. 



O. Thomas. Catalogue of the Marsupials and Monotremata in the 

 collection of the British Museum, 1888. 



