576 NATURAL HISTORY. 



There are some two or three species of ant-eaters, one occurring in 

 Australia and reaching over into Tasmania, while New Guinea apparently 

 has two species. All are small, about a foot in length, and the females 

 have, during the breeding, a rudimentary pouch for carrying the young, 

 which, as it were, foreshadows that of the kangaroos and opossums soon to 

 be described. 



• Technical matters are not admitted to our pages, and so we must forego 

 an}' account of the peculiarities which ally the duck-bill and the spring ant- 

 eater to the reptiles and birds. One point is, however, so interesting that 

 it must be mentioned. In the early days of scientific natural history it 

 was universally believed that these animals laid eggs, and the eggs were 

 even figured. As time passed, this idea fell into discredit, the eggs were 

 regarded as those of some reptile, and at last the whole thing was almost 

 forgotten, and these animals were universally regarded as bringing forth 

 their young alive, as do all other mammals. 



Such was the state of affairs until the last half of the year 1884, and 

 then by one of those remarkable coincidences the true facts of the case 

 were discovered almost simultaneously by two naturalists hundreds of 

 miles apart. On the second day of September, 1884, the British Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, then holding a meeting in Montreal, 

 were startled by a cablegram of four words from Mr. Caldwell, then in 

 Australia, announcing that these animals were oviparous. The telegram 

 was sent to London, and thence was repeated to Australia, and appeared in 

 the ' South Australian Register' of the fifth, and in the same number was 

 an account of a scientific meeting held in Adelaide on the second, in which 

 Dr. Haacke announced the same discovery. The coincidence was even more 

 close; for Dr. Haacke made his discovery on the 25th of August, while Mr. 

 Caldwell, two days' journey in the bush of Queensland, started his message 

 at almost exactly the same time. The egg is about the size of that of a 

 crow, and is covered with a flexible white shell, and the young duck-bill is 

 provided with a little knob on the beak, like that which aids the chick in 

 escaping from the egg. 



Pouched Animals. 



We have just alluded to the little rudimentary pouch of the spring ant- 

 eater, in which the young are carried lor a time, but in a large number of 

 otherwise less anomalous mammals the same structure acquires a far 

 greater development. In fact, it forms a regular pocket on the belly, in 

 which the young can stay until they reach a size when they are able to 

 take care of themselves ; and from this pouch these animals receive their 

 name Marsupials. 



