POUCH 



111 the Marsupials the pouch shelters the young, wliieh are 

 liorii in ail exceedingly imperfect state, minute, nude, and blind, 

 with a " larval " mouth fitted only to grasp in a permanent 

 fashion the teat, ui)oii which they are carefully fixed by the 

 parent. But even later tlie pouch is made use of as a temporary 

 harbour of refuge : from the pouch of female Kangaroos at the 

 Zoological Gardens may frequently be observed to protrude the tail 



ij. 1)1. 



;;. — Echidna hystri.r. A, Lower surface of liroodiug female ; B, dissection showing 

 ,1 dorsal view of the pouch and mammary glands ; tt, tlie two tufts of hair in tlie 

 lateral folds of the mammary pouch from which the secretion flows, b.m. Pouch ; 

 (■/, cloaca ; g-m, groups of mammary glands. (From Wiederslieim's Vompnratire 

 Anatomy, alter W. Haacke.) 



and hind-legs of a young Kangaroo as big as a Cat, and perfectly 

 well able to take care of itself. 



In the Monotremata (in Echidna) there is a deep fold of 

 tlie skin which lodges the unhatched egg, and into which the 

 mammary glands open, one on either side. This structure is only 

 periodically developed, and arises from two rudiments, one corre- 

 sponding to each mammary area ; but in the female with eggs or 

 young there is but a single deep depression, which occupies the 

 same region of the body as the marsupial pouch of the Mar- 



