us 



HISTORY OF 



like the former, as well as their tails, and that fill up the chasm 

 between the monkey tribe and the lower orders of the forest. 

 As the maki kind in some measure, seem to unite the fox and 

 the monkey in their figure and size, so these seem to unite the 



secretion moistened the hairs on its circumference. On the fifteenth day, 

 a finger was introduced into the pouch, and a round body about the size of 

 a pea was plainly felt at the bottom. Tliis examination was made with dif- 

 ficulty, on account of the impatience of the mother, who had before this been 

 always very mild and tranquil. On the seventeenth, she permitted a fur. 

 ther examination, and M. d'Aboville discovered two bodies about the size 

 of a pea. There was, however, a great number of these young- ones. On 

 the twenty-fifth day, they moved very perceptibly, yielding to the touch : 

 on the fortieth, the pouch was sufficiently open for them to be plainly dis. 

 tinguished ; and on the sixtieth, when the mother lay down, they were 

 eeen hanging to the teats, some outside the pouch, some inside. The nip- 

 ple is about two-eighths of an inch in length ; but it soon dries up, and at 

 last drops off, after the manner of the imibilical cord. 



M. Gcoffroy, lamenting the vagueness and obscurity existing on the sub- 

 ject of pouched animals, wTote an article in 1819, with this query as title, 

 " Are the pouclied animals born attached to the teats of the mother ?"^ 

 His object was to call the attention of scientific men to the subject, and 

 more especially of those who possess the means of investigation in those 

 countries which form the habitat of the animals. His observations are 

 highly interesting and important. On the pouch, he remarks that it is not 

 in the adult female, a cavity of equal capaciousness at all times. M. d' Abo- 

 ^ille observed it to increase in magnitude under the influence of the pheno- 

 mena of generation, and M. Geoffroy himself has observed its relati ve di- 

 mensions in females of the same species. It is small previous to sexual in- 

 tercourse, Uu-ge to excess when the young ones are about to drop from the 

 mammae, and of a moderate size in the period immediately follo\ving. Thus 

 the pouch cannot be considered merely as a second domicile, without spring 

 or activity ; it is a true place of incubation, extending by degrees, acquir- 

 iiio- more and more volume, as happens to every other domicile of the foetus. 

 Well, then-fore, might it be called a second uterus, and the most important 

 of the two. 



As to the mode in wliich the young are placed in the external pouch, or 

 rather attached to the nipple, nothing is acciu-ately known. A communi. 

 cation between the external uterus and this pouch has been asserted to exist, 

 but never demonstrated. Some have imagined that the mother placed the 

 young there herself with her hands and feet ; but this is not very likely. 

 Another opinion was, that the pouch extended to the orifice of the vagina ; 

 but the muscles do not seem disDosed for such an arrangement, and some 

 species have no pouch. 



Pouched animals derive their appej'ation of Marsupiata, or, as some call 

 them, Marsupiales, from the character of the pouch. It may, however, be 

 well questioned, whether as a generic or classic term, it be unobjectionable. 

 Tliere are many species in which this character of the pouch does not exist, 

 while, on the contrary, there are none without the double matrix, which 

 would render the Linna'an appellation of Didelphis more universally suit- 



