| 
| 
| 
THE BANDICOOTS. 131 
surface by the more highly organised Placentals, surviving, as 
we have seen, only in Australia and South America, with the 
exception that one member of the single American family ranges 
into the northern half of the New World. 
In habits the Polyprotodonts are chiefly carnivorous or in- 
sectivorous, and they thus take the place in Australia occupied 
‘in other regions by the true Carnivores and the so-called Insecti- 
vores, such as the Shrews, Hedgehogs, and Moles. 
Although in four out of the five families into which the Poly- 
protodonts are divided the structure of the hind foot is quite 
different from that obtaining in the Diprotodonts, yet it is not 
a little remarkable that in the family under consideration 
there is the same small size and union in a common integument 
‘of the second and third toes. The relation in which this struc- 
ture stands to its representative in the Diprotodonts has given 
rise to much discussion—but it must probably be regarded as 
an instance of parallel development. 
With these preliminary remarks, we proceed to the special 
characteristics of the family Peramelide, which are as follows :— 
Hind limbs markedly the longer; fore limbs with three, or 
sometimes only two, of the middle toes long and clawed, the 
others rudimentary or absent ; hind feet with four or five very 
unequally-sized toes ; first toe, or hallux, rudimentary or absent; 
second and third slender and united in a common integument ; 
fourth the strongest, long, with a large claw. Pouch opening 
backwards ; intestine with a blind appendage or czecum; 
collar-bones, or clavicles, wanting. Four or five pairs of incisor 
teeth in the upper, and three in the lower jaw. ‘Tail long and 
not prehensile. 
This family is found both in Australia and New Guinea, 
Although allied to the next, it is sharply differentiated therefrom 
by the structure of the hind foot. The peculiarity of the hind 
2 
