250 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l6g8. 



slender and soft, that I could not perceive that cartilaginous body, which is 

 usually met with in the structure of this part, in most other animals ; but as 

 if it was formed only by a duplication of this tender membrane or skin ; or if it 

 had a cartilage, as is likely, it was much finer than in most other animals. The 

 concha, or passage to the porus auditorius, was very capacious ; but it was ob- 

 served, that when our subject began to grow ill, the verge or rim of the ex- 

 ternal ear seemed to be crimped ; and when it died, it was so shrivelled as if 

 burnt up ; not making a smooth, but jagged edge. The upper-jaw was some- 

 what longer than the under ; the nostrils were large ; the eyes black, small, 

 vivid, and exerted, when alive ; now dead, very much sunk : the neck was 

 short ; the breast was broad. It had mustaches like a cat ; the fur on the face 

 is shorter and whiter than the rest of the body. On the back and sides it was 

 of an ash colour, or dappled with black hair in spots, intermixed with white, 

 especially on the back ; on the belly it was more of an umber colour, but darker 

 on the legs. The longest hairs, which were stronger and coarser than the rest, 

 measured 3 inches, and were white towards the ends. 



At the bottom of the belly, in the middle, between the two hinder-legs is 

 observed a slit or aperture, moderately extended about 2 inches long : but capa- 

 ble of a larger extension, by dilating it with the fingers, even when alive. 

 The animal can so exactly close and contract it, that the eye does not readily 

 discover it. There is, on each side of this aperture, a reduplication of the 

 skin inwards, forming a hairy bag; but the hairs are so thinly set, that almost 

 every where the skin is seen through them. The use of this bag, pouch, or 

 marsupium, is to preserve the young, and secure them on any occasion of 

 danger; and the contrivance is admirable in forming and adapting this part 

 so suitably to that end. For there are two remarkably strong bones, not to be 

 met with in any skeleton, of great use, which, from their office, I shall 

 call ossp marsupialia, or janitores marsupii. 



These bones are so fastened to the upper and inner edge of the ossa 

 pubis, that at their basis here they touch each other, just at the coalition 

 of the bones that form the ossa pubis. The other extremities of these 

 bones were at a distance from one another, that measured 2-^ inches. The 

 basis of these bones where joined to the ossa pubis was half an inch broad, 

 having 2 heads ; the larger lying near the coalition of the ossa pubis, and the 

 lesser towards the OS coxendicis ; having in the middle a sinus, into which was 

 received a protuberance of the ossa pubis: by which contrivance it appears, 

 there can be no motion of these bones, nearer or farther from one another, 

 but that they must stand always at an equal distance ; but they were capable of 

 a small motion inwards towards the spine, and outwards from it. These bones, 



