52 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



directions. When asleep it likewise rolled itself up. 

 Of this specimen it was noted by Sir Richard Owen 

 that its temperature w^as only 85° Fahrenheit, being 

 nearly 10° lower than that of a rabbit. The resem- 

 blance of this animal to an ant-eater is increased by 

 the fact that in order to keep its long tongue constantly 

 supplied with a viscous substance (so that ants may adhere 

 to it), it has enormous spittle glands (for its secretion), 

 which extend from behind the eye to the fore part of the 

 chest. 



The females of all the animals from Australia and 

 its vicinity which we have here noted are almost always 

 provided, like the American opossum, with more or less 

 of a pouch, and, whether the}' are so or not, they are all 

 distinguished by the possession of tw^o bones, called 

 " marsupial bones," which extend forward in the flesh 

 of the belly from the front margin of that bony girdle, 

 the pelvis, to which the hind legs are articulated. We 

 have said they exist in all. There is one exception : 

 the Tasmanian wolf has this structure not in the con- 

 dition of bone, but as two pieces of gristle, or cartilage. 



Now, the possession of these marsupial bones or 

 cartilages is found to go alor.g with a variety of other 

 characters wdiich it would be out of place to enumerate 

 here, but which serve to mark off the creatures possessing 

 them in a very sharp and distinct mannei* from all othei- 

 beasts. One very important character concerns the 

 reproductive function and structures concerned there- 

 with, and so all naturalists are now agreed that these 

 Australian beasts, together with the opossum of America, 

 form one great natural division which may be called 

 " marsupial." All the orders of beasts known before, and 

 above enumerated, form, on the other hand, a much 

 larger and yet parallel group of animals w^iich, from 



