110 



THE REASON WHY : 



The trees, devouring caterpillars bare : 



Parch ..-i was the grass, and blighted was the corn." DRYDEN. 



BO much grown, was not large enough to contain them, but the mother carried 

 them about fixed to her tail, legs, and body. 



The structure of these animals agrees with the contingencies under which 

 tley exist. They are subjected to considerable hardships, arising from the 

 alternate parching and flooding of the countries in which they abound 

 countries which are not adapted for the common mammalia in a state of 

 nature and accordingly we find that in New Holland, which may be con- 

 sidered the head quarters of marsupial animals, there are no native placental 

 mammalia, and such are not very common in the other localities of these animals. 

 New Holland, New Guinea, some of the other Islands of the Archipelago, South 

 America, and the warmer part of North America, in the case of a single species 

 only, are the localities of these animals, and it is not a little remarkable that 

 not one of them has been hitherto found in Africa, though they occur oil 

 both sides of it. 



341. Why has the kanguroo such powerful posterior organs'/ 



Because the hind feet and 

 the tail are employed as leap- 

 ing organs, and also as weapons 

 of defence. The leap is of 

 very great length, and is 

 accomplished by the action 

 of the tail, almost as much as 

 by the legs. 



By the pliability of its 

 spine and the flexibility of 

 its posterior members, the 

 animal can place icself pre- 

 paratory to a bound so that, 

 the lower bones of the leg 

 being horizontal, the two 

 superior bones shall be inclined to them at something less than 

 a right angle, as shown in figures 1 and 2, representing the profile 

 and the skeleton of the kanguroo ; by which it will be seen 

 how greatly the structure of the animal favours its principle ot 

 locomotion. 



Partington's ' Cyclopaedia." 



