MR. OWEN ON THE GENERATION OF THE MARSUPIAL ANIMALS. 345 



nipple. About half a line of the extremity of the nipple had entered the mouth, which 

 extremity was of smaller diameter than the rest of the nipple, not being as yet so 

 compressed by the contracted orifice of the mouth as to form a clavate extremity, 

 such as it afterwards presents. The young one moved its extremities vigorously after 

 being detached, but did not make any apparent effort to apply its legs to the integu- 

 ment of the mother, so as to creep along, but seemed, in regard to progressive motion, 

 to be perfectly helpless. It was deposited at the bottom of the pouch, and the mother 

 was liberated, and carefully watched for an hour. 



She immediately showed symptoms of uneasiness, stooping down to lick the orifice 

 of the vagina, and scratching the exterior of the pouch. At length she grasped the 

 «ides of the orifice of the pouch with her fore paws, and drawing them apart, as in 

 the act of opening a bag, she thrust her head into the cavity as far as the eyes, and 

 could be seen moving it about in different directions. During this act she rested 

 on the tripod formed by the tarsi and tail. She never meddled with the pouch 

 while in the recumbent posture, but when stimulated by uneasy sensations, she 

 immediately rose and repeated the process of drawing open the bag and inserting 

 her muzzle, sometimes keeping it there for half a minute at a time. I never ob- 

 served that she put her fore legs into the pouch ; they were invariably employed 

 to widen the orifice. When she withdrew her head, she generally concluded by 

 licking the orifice of the pouch and swallowing the secretion. After repeating the 

 above act about a dozen times she lay down, and seemed to be at ease. 



The freedom with which the mother reached with her mouth the orifices both of 

 the genital passage and pouch, suggested at once a means adequate to the removal 

 of the young from the one to the other ; while at the same time her employment of 

 the fore paws indicated that their assistance in the transmission of the foetus need 

 not extend beyond the keeping open the entrance of the pouch while the foetus was 

 being introduced by the mouth, when it is thus probably conducted to, and held 

 over, a nipple until the mother feels that it has grasped the sensitive extremity of the 

 part from which it is to derive its sustenance. 



This mode of transmission is consistent with analogy, the mouth being always 

 employed by the ordinary quadrupeds, as Dogs, Cats, and Mice, for the purpose of 

 removing their helpless offspring. It accords, also, with the phenomena better than 

 those which have been previously proposed ; for it is now ascertained, by repeated 

 dissections both of the Kangaroo and Opossum, that there is no internal passage from 

 the uterus to the marsupium ; and if the genital outlet can be brought into contact 

 with the orifice of the pouch in the dead Kangaroo by means of great stretching of 

 the relaxed parts, yet such an action has never been witnessed in the living animal*^: 

 the tender embryo would be more liable to receive injury from the fore paws ; and 

 these, ftbm the absence of a thumb, could not so effectually ensure its passage as the 



* This argument is not applicable to those Marsupiata which, like Perameks and the smaller South Ame- 

 rican Opossums, have the duplicatures of integument forming the pouch extended close to the cloaca. 



