102 A FOSSIL CONTINENT 



closely resemble fins ; and nothing about it seems to differ 

 very markedly from the outer aspect of a shark or a cod- 

 fish. But in reality ic has no gills and no swim-bladder ; 

 it lays no eggs ; it does not own one truly fish-like organ. 

 It breathes air, it possesses lungs, it has warm blood, it 

 suckles its young ; in heart and brain and nerves and 

 organisation it is a thoroughgoing mammal, with an ac- 

 quired resemblance to the fishy form, due entirely to mere 

 similarity in place of residence. 



Running hastily through the chief marsupial develop- 

 ments, one may say that the wombats are pouched animals 

 who take the place of rabbits or marmots in Europe, and 

 resemble them both in burrowing habits and more or less 

 in shape, which closely approaches the familiar and un- 

 graceful guinea-pig outline. The vulpine phalanger does 

 duty for a fox ; the fat and sleepy little dormouse phalanger 

 takes the place of a European dormouse. Both are so ridi- 

 culously like the analogous animals of the larger continents 

 that the colonists always call them, in perfect good faith, 

 by the familiar names of the old-country creatures. The 

 koala poses as a small bear ; the cuscus answ^ers to the 

 racoons of America. The pouched badgers explain them- 

 selves at once by their very name, like the Plyants, the 

 Pinchwifes, the Brainsicks, and the Carelesses of the 

 Eestoration comedy. The * native rabbit ' of Swan River 

 is a rabbit-liko bandicoot ; the pouched ant-eater similarly 

 takes the place of the true ant-eaters of other continents. 

 By way of carnivores, the Tasmanian devil is a fierce and 

 savage marsupial analogue of the American wolverine ; a 

 smaller species of the same type usurps the name and place 

 of the marten ; and the dog-headed Thylacinus is in form 

 and figure precisely like a wolf or a jackal. The pouched 

 weasels are very weasel-like ; the kangaroo rats and kanga- 

 roo mice run the true rats and mice a close race in every 



