

MARSUPIALS. 



petauristes, are of such singular formation, and so remarkable in their habits of life, that 

 if they had not been made familiar to us through the mediumship of menageries, 

 museums, and the writings of accredited travellers, we should feel rather inclined to 

 consider them and their habits to be but emanations from the fertile brain of some 

 imaginative voyager, who was taking full advantage of the proverbial traveller's licence. 

 Even at the present day, our familiarity with these animals in no way derogates from 

 our wonder at their strange conformation ; and the structure of many of them is so 

 complicated, and involves so many considerations, that the study of the Macropidae 

 and their habits is as yet but little advanced. Anatomists such as Owen, Meckel, John 

 Hunter, and scientific travellers such as Gould, have done much towards clearing up 

 many dubious points in the history of these animals, but the subject is yet comparatively 

 in obscurity, and much remains to be achieved by future zoologists. 



Many acknowledged species are known but as " specimens," no accounts of their 

 mode of life, the localities which they most frequent, their food, or their habits having as 

 yet been given to the world ; while it is more than suspected that in many of the vast 

 unexplored portions of Australasia may yet be found numerous species of these animals 

 which are as yet unknown to science, and which will supply many of the links which 

 are needed to complete the system of nature. 



There is hardly any practical writer on zoology who does not lament the very 

 incomplete state of our knowledge on this subject ; and those who have thrown them- 

 selves most zealously into the work, and have achieved the greatest success, have been 

 the most ready to acknowledge the enormous gap that has yet to be filled, and to urge 

 others to prosecute their researches in regions which have as yet been untraversed 

 by the foot of civilized man, and which are the most likely to be the dwelling-places of 

 creatures on which, as yet, an educated white man has never set his eye. Several genera 

 are known to be extinct, and there are interesting accounts of fossil discoveries in Aus- 

 tralia, which bring to light the remains of gigantic animals of the same kind as those 

 which now inhabit that country. 



So distinct are many of the animals of Australia from those of the Old World, that 

 more than one zoologist has confessed that they seem to be the result of another and 

 a later creation than that by which the animals of the northern hemisphere received 

 their being. 



The peculiarity which gives the greatest interest to this group of animals, is that 

 wonderful modification of the nutritient organs, which has gained for them the title of 

 MARSUPIALIA, or pouched animals a name which is derived from the Latin word 

 marsupium, which signifies a purse or pouch. This singular structure is only found in 

 the female Marsupials, and in them is variously developed according to the character of 

 the animal and the mode of life for which it is intended. 



The more minute details concerning the marsupium, or pouch, will be found in the 

 course of the work in connection with the particular species to which it belongs, but the 

 general idea of that structure is much as follows : 



The lower part of the abdomen is furnished with a tolerably large pouch, in the interior 

 of which the mammae, or teats, are placed. When the young, even of so large an animal 

 as the kangaroo, make their appearance in the world, they are exceedingly minute the 

 young kangaroo being only an inch in length and entirely unable to endure the rough 

 treatment which they would meet with were they to be nurtured according to the manner 

 in which the young of all other animals are nourished. Accordingly, as soon as they are 

 born, they are transferred by the mother into the pouch, when they instinctively attach 

 themselves to the teats, and there hang until they have attained considerable dimensions. 

 By degrees, as they grow older and stronger, they loosen their hold, and put their little 

 heads out of the living cradle, in order to survey the world at leisure. In a few 

 weeks more they gain sufficient strength to leave the pouch entirely, and to frisk about 

 under the guardianship of their mother, who, however, is always ready to receive 

 them again into their cradle if there is any rumor of danger ; and if any necessity 

 for flight should present itself, flies from the dangerous locality, carrying her young 

 with her. 



In some of the Marsupials the pouch is hardly deserving of the name, being modified 



