THE YAPOCK OPOSSUM. 501 



IN VERY many respects, the marsupiated animals seem to take in Australia the places 

 that are occupied in other countries by creatures of very different orders. For example, 

 the Tasmanian wolf is clearly the representative of the true wolves that inhabit other 

 parts of the earth the kangaroos take the place of the jerboas, and so on. There is, 

 however, one singular deficiency in 'the Australian fauna, which seems to be partially 

 supplied by different members of this curious order. 



Australia appears to be a country that would be well adapted for the monkey race, 

 and we might reasonably expect to find many curious species of quadrumana inhabit- 

 ing its deserts and vast forests. Yet, as far as is yet known, there is no member of 

 the quadrumana to be found in that land. Many of the monkey's habits, however, 

 are possessed by the indigenous marsupials, which seem to serve as the representatives 

 of the quadrumana in Australia. Very many species among which we must look for 

 these representative animals are arboreal in their habits, and, although they do not 

 possess the true quadrumanous structure, are yet endowed with such hand-like 

 extremities that they may fairly be considered as the analogues of these animals. 



Perhaps the strangely brutalized form of humanity which exists in that wondrous 

 land may have some connection with the remarkable forms of animal life which are co- 

 inhabitants of the same country ; for in truth, the aboriginal Australian is of so low a 

 type that there seems to be little necessity for the existence of the quadrumana race to 

 prevent too abrupt a transition from the bipedal to the quadrupedal form. 



It is a strange race of humanity, and which, by its own showing, is on the point of 

 vanishing from the face of the earth. The traditions of the Australian aborigines are 

 most singular and prophetic. They say that their deity has been vanquished by that of 

 the white man, that he is dethroned, and though still living is buried under the earth, ex- 

 isting only by permission. They even consider him to be inferior to the white man, and 

 have consequently lost all feeling of reverence for so degraded a being. They have not 

 even the paltry veneration that is inspired by fear, and seem to have reached the lowest 

 depths of degradation to which religious feeling can fall. Some deference they still pay 

 to the malevolent phantoms which are supposed to haunt the sepulchres of the dead, but 

 when a race of mankind has fallen so low in spiritual knowledge as to think the white 

 man superior to the black god, we can look for nothing less than total and speedy 

 extinction. 



Few religious creeds are there which have not so much of life in them that even when 

 cast off by the more developed minds, they cannot be taken up by others and made 

 vital and useful to them. But in the present instance it is impossible to conceive that any 

 being possessed of human form and human intellect could avail himself of a creed so 

 pitifully contemptible as to degrade its supreme deity below the level of created man. 



