INTRODUCTION. 55 



species of Australian Mammalia, the greater number 

 certainly belonging to species either extinct or as yet 

 not discovered. 



Classification of the Marsupiata. The Marsu- 

 piata, known to Linnaeus, are placed by him between 

 the Carnivora and Insectivora, that is to say, the 

 genus Didelphys in the 12th edition of the Systema 

 Naturae, is placed between the Linnaean genera 

 Ursus and Talpa. Cuvier, in his Regne Animal, 

 published in 1817, observes, as regards this class, 

 ' that the Marsupials, which we arrange at the end 

 of the Carnassieres as a fourth family of that great 

 order, might almost be separated as a distinct order, 

 so many peculiarities do they exhibit in their eco- 

 nomy/' * * * * " One might, in fact, say 

 that the Marsupiata formed a distinct class, parallel 

 to that of ordinary quadrupeds, and, like them, might 

 be divided into orders." In the last edition of the 

 Regne Animal, which made its appearance in 1829, 

 we find this group separated as a distinct order, and 

 placed between the Carnivora and Rodentia* 



De Blainville, in his work entitled " De I' Organi- 

 sation des Animaux" divides the class Mammalia 



* M. M. Desmarest, Lesson, and Fischer, follow the classi- 

 fication of Cuvier's first edition. M. Temminck also adopts 

 the classification of Cuvier, but he has the credit of having 

 separated, as distinct orders, the Cheiroptera and Marsupiata. 

 The last mentioned order was therefore separated in 1827, 

 two years before the publication of Cuvier's last edition. 



