NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 161 



but we learn from him no more of the ring than ' Dan 



Chaucer' tells us : — 



The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here. 

 Is this, that if she hst it for to were 

 Upon her thombe, or in her purse it here, 

 There is no foule that ileeth under heven 

 That she ne shall understand his Steven,* 

 And know his meaning openly and plaiue. 

 And answer him in his language againe : 



as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon in 

 Ttce Squier's Tale. Nor is the ' vertue ' of the ring con- 

 fined to bird intelligence, for the knight who came on 

 the ' steed of brasse/ adds, — 



And everj" grasse that groweth upon root 

 She shall well know to whom it will do boot. 

 All be his wounds never so deep and wide. 



But we must return from these realms of fancy to a 

 country hardly less wonderful ; for Australia presents, 

 in the realities of its quadrupedal forms, a scene that 

 might Avell pass for one of enchantment. 



To the uninitiated, a commencement of an account in 

 the follo^ving manner would look verj like a narrative 

 proceeding from the pen of the renowned Captain Lemuel 

 Gulliver. 



The country" of the marsupiates, or purse-bearers, is of 

 enormous extent, and forms a fifth quarter of the globe. 

 Their young are bom in an embrj-otic state, and con- 

 veyed to a comfortable marsujnuni or pouch belonging 

 to the mother, where there are teats, to which these 

 foetuses attach themselves by their mouths. Here they 

 stick, Hke little animated lumps, till the small knobs 

 which exist at the places where the members ought to 

 be, bud and shoot out into Hmbs. By and bye these 

 limbs become more and more perfect, and the extremi- 

 ties are completely formed ; till gradually the develop- 



* Sound. 



