119 



ORDER IV. MARSUPIALIA* 



WHEN Linnaeus attempted to organize and ar- 

 range the science of Natural History, an animal was 

 known, which offered a remarkable deviation from 

 the general structure. It was the Opossum of North 

 America ; and the peculiarity consisted in a pouch, 

 or bag, on the abdomen of the female, into which 

 the offspring was transferred at a very early stage of 

 developement, and nourished as in a second womb. 

 The subsequent discovery of the great continent of 

 Australia laid open other species, and even genera, 

 similarly formed ; and it is a most remarkable fact 

 that, of the terrestrial quadrupeds inhabiting that 

 country, with which late researches have made us 

 acquainted, amounting to nearly a hundred species 

 already known, almost all, though varying among 

 themselves in food, structure, and habits, yet are 

 united together in one group, by many strongly 

 marked characters, of which the most prominent is 

 the abdominal pouch abovementioned. Cuvier, there- 

 fore, fonned the whole into an assemblage, to which 

 he, in the last edition of his work, assigned the rank 

 of an order ; but it may be proper to observe, that he 

 himself saw its claims to be considered as a separate 



* Marsupium, a purse. 



