CHAPTER XIV. 



THE TEETH OF MARSUPIALIA. 



The great sub-class of Marsupials, consisting- of animals very 

 sharply marked off from placental Mammals by many striking 

 peculiarities and amongst others, by the very helpless condition in 

 which the foetus is born, was once very widely distributed over the 

 globe. Now, however, Marsupials are numerous only in Australia, 

 where they are almost the sole representatives of the Mammalian 

 class ; there are a few Marsupials elsewhere, as in America 

 (Opossums) and New Guinea ; but there are no Marsupials in 

 Europe, most parts of Asia, and Africa. 



The Marsupials of America are all Opossums {JDidelphidai), and 

 this family is not represented in Australia. There is evidence to 

 indicate that the Marsupials of America have nothing at all to do 

 with the Australian Marsupials, but were derived from a different 

 source, at the time when Marsupials abounded all over Europe. 



The Marsupials of Australia almost monopolise that country ; 

 thus Mr. Wallace says of it : " The Australian region is broadly 

 distinguished from all the rest of the globe by the entire absence 

 of all the orders of non-aquatic mammalia that abound in the old 

 world, except two the Winged Bats (C/iiroptera), and the equally 

 cosmopolite Rodents. Of these latter, however, only one family is 

 represented the Muridae (comprising the Rats and Mice), and 

 the Australian representatives of these are all of small or moderate 

 size a suggestive fact in appreciating the true character of the 

 Australian fauna. 



" In place of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, and Ungulates, which 

 abound in endless variety in all the other zoological regions under 

 equally favourable conditions, Australia possesses two new orders 

 or sub-classes, Marsupialia and Monotremata, found nowhere else 

 in the globe, except a single family of the former in America. 



" The Marsupials are wonderfully developed in Australia, where 

 they exist in the most diversified forms, adapted to different modes 

 of life. Some are carnivorous, some herbivorous, some arboreal, 

 others terrestrial. There are insect-eaters, root-gnawers, fruit- 

 eaters, honey-eaters, leaf or grass-feeders. 



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