THE POUCHED BADGERS. 



197 



remains hanging for a long period at once. 

 Birds and birds' eggs form its favourite food. 

 In inhabited districts it often intrudes into the 

 farmyards in order to plunder the poultry- 

 pens, and thereby it calls down upon itself the 

 wrath of the farmers, who pursue it with fury. 

 Its flesh is bad and diffuses a disgusting 

 odour. When the opossum is attacked and 

 wounded it pretends to be dead and rolls 

 itself up, and then the greatest tortures will 

 not suffice to induce it to stir in the slightest 

 degree. The young of this animal, as has 

 been well established, come into the world 

 after a period of gestation lasting only a fort- 

 night, and at birth are blind and without ears. 

 The new-born opossum is only of about the 

 size of a pea, and its mouth forms a sort of 

 tube into which the teat to which it is attached 

 fits. It remains for about two months in the 

 pouch, which the mother keeps constantly 

 closed. When it has grown to about the size 

 of a rat it leaves the pouch for ever. As 

 many as sixteen young ones have been counted 

 in a single pouch. 



The distinction between a carnivorous and 

 an insectivorous dentition, which is so well 

 marked in the placental mammals, is much 

 less pronounced in the marsupials, as we have 

 seen above in the case of the opossums. In 

 the Australian marsupials, which are now 

 about to engage our attention, this comming- 



ling of dental characters likewise occurs, yet 

 we cannot but recognize the fact that a 

 divergence of type begins to appear, leading, 

 on the one hand, to a perfect carnivorous 

 dentition, and, on the other hand, to one of 

 a purely insectivorous character. All these 



Fig. 249. — The Common Opossum (Didelphys virginiana). 



different types we unite in one group, on 

 which we bestow the name of the Predaceous 

 Marsupials. 



THE PREDACEOUS MARSUPIALS 



(RAPACES). 



THE POUCHED BADGERS 



(PERAMELIDA). 



The family of the Peramelida or pouched 

 badgers is that in which the dentition most 

 closely resembles that of the Didelphyida; but 

 the members of this family are distinguished 

 from the latter by their general habit and the 



structure of the feet. The dental formula 

 would be exactly the same as that of the 

 previous family, if a pair of incisors were not 

 wanting in the lower jaw; instead of four 

 incisors on each side there are only three. 

 The premolars and molars have the same 

 form and are present in the same number, yet 

 the carnivorous type of dentition is less marked 



