MAMMALIA ORDER XLMARSUPIALIA. 



of the tubular mouth. Each of the limbs is furnished with five toes, 

 terminating in long powerful claws, of which the supporting bones are 

 longitudinally split at their extremities ; the front claws being much 

 larger than the hinder ones, and the third toe in each foot superior in size to 

 the rest. In walking, the front claws are bent beneath the soles, so that the 

 weight of the body is mainly borne on the upper and outer sides of the third 



and fourth digits ; but in the hind-limbs 

 the whole sole of the foot is applied 

 to the ground in the ordinary manner. 

 The tail may be either long or medium. 

 Collar-bones are wanting in the skeleton. 

 Pangolins are confined to south-eastern 

 Asia, and Africa south of the Sahara ; 

 the largest species, which measures up- 

 wards of 6 ft. in total length, being an 



._. _. ^ inhabitant of West Africa. They resemble 



""** the aard-varks in feeding on ants and 



Fig. 101. A. PANGOLIN- (Manis). termites, which are licked up by the 



extensile tongue, after their hillocks have 



been laid open by the powerful claws of these animals. They are likewise 

 nocturnal, and have the power of rolling themselves up into a ball, when 

 they are completely secure from most enemies. Some of the African forms 

 are more or less arboreal, but all the rest are purely terrestrial. 

 Apparently only a single young is produced at a birth, for the nourish- 

 ment of which the breast of the female carries a pair of teats. 



ORDER XL MARSUPIALIA. 

 POUCHED MAMMALS. 



THE whole of the ten mammalian orders treated of above are collectively 

 characterised by the circumstance that, during intra-uterine life, the blood- 

 vessels of the foetus are connected with those of the parent by means of a 

 vascular organ known as the placenta. And it is due to this communication 

 between the foetal and maternal circulations that the young are born in the 

 more or less highly- developed state characteristic of the whole assemblage. 

 Collectively, the whole ten orders form a sub-class, known indifferently as 

 the Eutheria or Placentalia. On the other hand, in the mammals forming 

 the subject of the present section, a placenta is never developed, and there 

 is consequently no direct connection between the circulatory systems of the 

 parent and offspring, so that the young are produced in an exceedingly 

 imperfect state of development. To this group, which forms a second sub- 

 class, the name of Metatheria, or Implacentalia, is applied, while it is 

 sometimes known as the Didelphia, on account of the completely double 

 uterus or womb, and thereby contrasts with the Eutheria, in which the 

 uterus is either single, or its two branches are united at their outlet. 

 Hence the name Monodelphia is not unfrequently given to the first of the 

 two sub-classes. 

 Whereas the Placentals, as already indicated, are split up into the ten 



