252 VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I698. 



The pouch, or marsupium itself, was a membranous body, not very thick, 

 though consisting of several coats, and is reducible to the class of the vesicular 

 parts of the body ; which seem to be partly muscles, partly glands, and to 

 perform the office of both motion and secretion : for the cavity of this pouch 

 was somewhat hairy, and at several places I could observe them matted to- 

 gether by a yellowish substance, which ouzed out of the cutaneous glands. 

 This liquor discharged into the pouch from the glandulous coat, was strong 

 scented, and had more of the peculiar foetor o( this animal, than any part be- 

 sides. But after the skin, with the pouch, had been kept for some days, and 

 was grown dry, there was so great an alteration in the smell, that vi'hat before 

 was so disagreeable, was now become a perfect perfume, and smelled altogether 

 like musk ; though the general consent of all authors had branded it with the 

 note of a foetid stinking animal. But the same is to be observed in the 

 richest perfumes we have, as musk, civet, and ambergris. 



This marsupium had likewise a muscular coat, besides the several other 

 muscles bestowed on it, to give it motion. It had also a vascular coat, 

 being plentifully irrigated by blood vessels, especially by 2 large branches, that 

 came from the upper part of the thorax, and might be reckoned the mammaria, 

 as they are styled in other animals. This pouch was fastened by several mem- 

 branes to the muscles of the abdomen and the skin ; but so as to be easily 

 separated for the most part with my fingers. 



In this marsupium, or pouch, many writers on the natural history of this 

 animal place the mammae or teats ; and they tell very odd stories about it : I 

 will only relate what they say of it ; and what I at present observed, or rather, 

 did not observe. 



I did not find any teats here, nor even on the outward skin, as is usual in 

 other multiparous animals. Possibly this subject never had a litter; and for 

 want of drawing, the teat& might be less, so as to escape notice. The 

 male also, if we may believe Piso, has such another purse under his belly, and 

 takes his turn to carry the young, in order to ease the female. 



This contrivance of nature for securing the young from any danger, till they 

 are able to shift for themselves, is perhaps not to be paralleled in any other 

 species of animals, at least of the quadruped kind.* Not that she is wanting in 

 abundantly providing for their preservation ; but she pleases herself in using 

 infinite variety in attaining the same end. Nor are there wanting instances to 

 evince it: what comes nearest to our subject is recorded in Oppianus, (Halieu- 



* The kanguroo of New Holland, wlich by some naturalists is referred to the opossum-tribe, by 

 others is made a distinct genus, is provided with a similar pouch. 



