456 MARSUPIALS. 
petauristes, are of such singular formation, and so remarkable in their habits of life, that 
if they had not been made familiar to us through the mediumship of menageries, 
museums, and the writings of accredited travellers, we should feel rather inclined to 
consider them and their habits to be but emanations from the fertile brain of some 
imaginative voyager, who was taking full advantage of the proverbial traveller's licence. 
Even at the present day, our familiarity with these animals in no way derogates from 
our wonder at their strange conformation ; and the structure of many of them is so 
complicated, and involves so many considerations, that the study of the Macropidee 
and their habits is as yet but little advanced. Anatomists such as Owen, Meckel, John 
Hunter, and scientific travellers such as Gould, have done much towards clearing up 
many dubious points in the history of these animals, but the subject is yet comparatively 
in obscurity, and much remains to be achieved by future zoologists. 
Many acknowledged species are known but as “specimens,” no accounts of their 
mode of life, the localities which they most frequent, their food, or their habits, having as 
yet been given to the world ; while it is more than suspected that in many of the vast 
unexplored portions of Australasia may yet be found numerous species of these animals 
which are as yet unknown to science, and which will supply many of the links which 
are needed to complete the system of nature. 
There is hardly any practical writer on zoology who does not lament the very 
incomplete state of our knowledge on this subject ; and those who have thrown themselves 
most zealously into the work, and have achieved the greatest success, have been the most 
ready to acknowledge the enormous gap that has yet to be filled, and to urge others to 
prosecute their researches in regions which have as yet been untraversed by the foot of 
civilized man, and which are the most likely to be the dwelling-places of creatures on 
which, as yet, an educated white man has never set his eye. Several genera are known 
to be extinct, and there are interesting accounts of fossil discoveries in Australia, which 
bring to light the remains of gigantic animals of the same kind as those which now 
inhabit that country. : 
So distinct are many of the animals of Australia from those of the Old World, that 
more than one zoologist has confessed that they seem to be the result of another and 
a later creation than that by which the animals of the northern hemisphere received 
their being. 
The peculiarity which gives the greatest interest to this group of animals, is that 
wonderful modification of the nutritient organs, which has gained for them the title of 
MARSUPIALIA, or pouched animals—a name which is derived from the Latin word 
marsupium, Which signifies a purse or pouch. This singular structure is only found in 
the female Marsupials, and in them is variously developed according to the character of 
the animal and the mode of life for which it is intended. 
The more minute details concerning the marsupium, or pouch, will be found in the 
course of the work in connexion with the particular species to which it belongs, but the 
general idea of that structure is much as follows :— 
The lower part of the abdomen is furnished with a tolerably large pouch, in the interior 
of which the mammee, or teats, are placed. When the young, even of so large an animal 
as the kangaroo, make their appearance in the world, they are exceedingly minute — the 
young kangaroo being only an inch in length —and entirely unable to endure the rough 
treatment which they would meet with were they to be nurtured according to the manner 
in which the young of all other animals are nourished. Accordingly, as soon as they are 
born, they are transferred by the mother into the pouch, when they instinctively attach 
themselves to the teats, and there hang until they have attained considerable dimensions. 
By degrees, as they grow older and stronger, they loosen their hold, and put their little 
heads out of the living cradle, in order to survey the world at leisure. In a few weeks 
more they gain sufficient streneth to leave the pouch entirely, and to frisk about under 
the guardianship of their mother, who, however, is always ready to receive them again 
into their cradle if there is any rumour of danger; and if any necessity for flight should 
present itself, flies from the dangerous locality, carrying her young with her. 
In some of the Marsupials the pouch is hardly deserving of the name, being modified 
