4 METATHERIA, 
Dimensions.—Head and body, £. lawesi, about fourteen inches; 
E. aculeata, about seventeen, and £. sefosa about twenty. 
Habitat.—From South-eastern New Guinea throughout the 
whole of Australia to Tasmania. 
References.—Thomas, B. M. Catal. p. 377; Gould, Mamm., 
Austr. i. pls. ii. (#. aculeata), ii. (£. setosa ). 
Subclass II—METATHERIA. 
The Metatherian Mammals, more generally known as the 
DipELPHtIA or MARSUPIALIA, are at the present time, with the ex- 
ception of the True Opossums (Didelphyide) of the New World, 
confined to the Australian, Papuasian, and the eastern islands of 
the Austro-Malayan subregions ; the easternmost point to which 
their range extends being the Island of San Christoval, belonging 
to the western section of the Solomon Archipelago, where the short- 
headed variety of the Gray Cuscus (Phalanger orientalis var. 
breviceps) is found ; the Group was however at a former period 
much more generally distributed over the surface of the earth, 
species having been discovered in a fossil state in Europe, South 
Africa, and America. They differ from all other Mammals by the 
presence in the female of a permanent pouch (marsuprum)— 
obsolete in Myrmecobius and practically so in Phascologale— 
formed by a fold in the integument, and which is furnished with 
a varying number of teats, to which the young are attached at 
a very early stage of growth by the mother, who, by means of 
specially adapted muscles, forces the milk from the mamme into 
their mouths, their condition being for a considerable period so 
imperfect as to preclude the possibility of their obtaining nutri- 
ment of their own volition. Both sexes are provided with long 
epipubic bones, generally known as “marsupial bones,” though 
having in reality no connection whatever with the pouch; these 
bones are rudimentary in Zhylacinus, while in the Bandicoots 
(Peramelide) the clavicles are wanting. 
Order I.—MARSUPIALIA. 
Limbs subequal, or the hinder pair much the larger and form- 
ing the chief agents in progression. Tail almost invariably present, 
generally long, and often prehensile. Teeth very variable in 
structure. Mamme in varying numbers. 
Suborder I.—Polyprotodontia. 
Incisors numerous, four or five in the upper, three or four in 
the lower jaw, subequal, much smaller than the canines. Molars 
generally sharply cuspidate. 
Habits.—Carnivorous ; insectivorous ; rarely omnivorous. 
