﻿THE PHALANGERS, &C. 77 



As regards their distribution in space, the Phalangerida 

 range not only over Australia and Tasmania, but are likewise 

 found in New Guinea and the Austro-Malayan islands, their 

 extreme westerly limit being Celebes. The two most peculiar 

 and aberrant genera {Fhascolarctus and Tarsipes) are, however, 

 exclusively Australian. 



As is well remarked by the author of the admirable technical 

 work the " British Museum Catalogue of Marsupials," the Pha- 

 langers and their allies may be regarded as the most generalised, 

 and therefore presumably the most ancient types of Diprotodont 

 Marsupials at present existing. Related closely to one another 

 in respect of external form and appearance, they differ very 

 widely in regard to their dental characters, thus showing that 

 specialisation has played a large part in the latter. It is scarcely 

 necessary to observe that the numerous small functionless teeth 

 occurring in so many members of the family are remnants of 

 the fuller series of teeth characterising the second and more 

 generalised primary sub-division of the Marsupials known as the 

 Polyprotodonts. And it may be incidentally mentioned here, 

 as tending to show the origin of the comparatively specialised 

 Diprotodonts from the generalised Polyprotodonts that even in 

 such a highly'specialised group as the Kangaroos vestiges of at 

 least five pairs of incisor teeth have recently been discovered 

 in the foetus. 



In their modes of life the Phalangers and their allies are 

 essentially arboreal creatures, the great majority of them being 

 largely assisted in their climbing by their highly prehensile tail. 

 Some, however, have " gone one better " than this, and have 

 developed large parachute-like expansions of skin from the 

 sides of the body, by means of which they are able to take long 

 flying leaps from bough to bough, and thus from tree to tree. 

 And it may be mentioned here as a somewhat remarkable 

 circumstance that the different groups of these Flying Phalan- 



