XXXIV. MARSUPIALS AND THEIR SKINS 



PRESENT prices will certainly not alter the English 

 feeling that the wearing of fur is a luxury, and a most 

 expensive one. A series of very severe winters might 

 force us to change this view, because it would become 

 evident that to preserve health fur must be worn by 

 men as well as by women, and we should discover, as 

 everyone in Northern Europe discovered long ago, that 

 the greater number of furs are not dear, but cheap, 

 and that these cheap furs come into the market by 

 millions at a time. This applies to the skins of the 

 musquash, gray squirrel, and hamster, besides which 

 the sheepskins and lambskins which our nation never 

 has worn, and probably never will consent to wear, 

 except in the far less warm manufactured form, number 

 as many millions more. But far the greatest number 

 of fur-bearing animals killed, though their skins are 

 not all brought to market, are the marsupials the 

 opossums, wombats, kangaroos, and wallabies (smaller 

 kangaroos) of the Australian continent. This ought 



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