CLASS MAMMALIA. 
Order I. Marsupialia. Marsupials. 
The Marsupials or Pouched Mammals have at the present time a 
most restricted distribution, all the families of the order but one 
being found in the Australian region, viz., Australia, Tasmania, 
New Guinea, Celebes, and smaller contiguous islands. The one 
family, Didelphyide, foreign to this portion of the world is confined 
to the more southern parts of North America, and to South America. 
Marsupials are peculiar in the majority of cases, for having a fold of 
skin about the milk glands which forms a pouch, and in which the 
undeveloped young are placed and nourished. The species vary greatly 
in size, from the giant kangaroo, taller than many men, to little 
creatures not much larger than a mouse. One, Chironectes minimus, an 
opossum from Central America, Guiana, and Brazil, is aquatic in 
its habits, with large webbed hind feet, and it feeds on fish and other 
marine creatures which it secures in the manner of the otter. Some 
opossums, however, are not provided with a pouch, but the young 
are nevertheless fastened to the teats of the mother in a similar man- 
ner as are those whose parents possess this sac, and when they are 
sufficiently grown to leave the teats, they are transferred to their 
mother’s back, where they maintain their position by wrapping their 
tails around that of the female, which is elevated over her back and 
carried there for this purpose. 
Fam. l. Didelphyidze. Opossums. 
Limbs rather short; feet with five distinct toes; tail prehensile. 
Pouch sometimes present. Habits arboreal. 
O. Thomas. Catalogue of the Marsupials and Monotremata in the 
collection of the British Museum, 1888. 
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