MARSUPJALIA. 103 



SECTION XVII. 

 FOURTH ORDER. MARSUPIALIA, OR MARSUPIATA. 



(Lat. marsupium, a purse or bag.) 



This order is arranged into two sections, Marsupials and 

 Monotremata. These are not unfrequently regarded as separate 

 orders, constituting a sub-class termed Ovo-vivipara, (Lat. ovum, 

 an egg ; irivo, to live, and pario, to produce,) and intermediate 

 between the truly viviparous mammals and the oviparous birds 

 and reptiles. The animals of this order are numerous and quite 

 different in their organs from all other mammals. So peculiar 

 is their internal structure that Cuvier remarks they may be looked 

 upon as containing several orders running parallel with the or- 

 ders of ordinary quadrupeds. Their rank is low in the scale of 

 intelligence. Of the two sections the marsupials show the least 

 departure from the general type of the Mammalia. The most 

 striking peculiarity, common to them all, is the immature state 

 of the young at birth, they being much like the half formed 

 chick in an egg which has been but a few days incubated , and 

 their reception, into a pouch or fold of a skin in the female, in 

 which they .are nourished, remaining there five or six weeks, 

 until they increase in size and are able to take care of them- 

 selves. Even for some time after the young one can procure its 

 own living^ and runs and plays by its mother's side, it instinct- 

 ively flies to the maternal pouch for protection from threatening 

 danger. The pouch is supported by two bones placed amidst 

 the abdominal muscles and called the marsupial bones. They 

 are found in the male as well as in the female, and even in species 

 where the pouch- formed fold of the skin is scarcely perceptible. 

 It is remarkable that these mammals are confined almost entirely 

 to Australia, including New Guinea and the islands immediately 

 adjacent, excepting the Opossums, whose home is South America, 

 but which are also found abundantly in the United States, resid- 

 ing in woods and thickets near hamlets and villages. Appear- 

 ances of secondary rocks seem, however, to indicate that at for- 

 mer periods they were more widely spread over the earth's sur- 

 face than they are at present. 



The Marsupials include between seventy and eighty known spe- 

 cies, arranged by Prof. Owen into sixteen genera. The whole 

 are divided into five families, named from the more usual char- 

 acter of their food. I. The SARCOPHAGA, (Gr. owl, sarx ; 

 qpaycu, phago, to eat.) FLESH-EATERS. 



These are found in New Holland and Van Diemen's Land 



