116 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 
to which she had otherwise so universally adhered. 
That particular form, for instance, which, in other parts 
of the world, she has given to the smallest race of qua- 
drupeds,—the rats and dormice,—she here bestows 
upon the kangaroos, the largest animals throughout the 
whole of Australia! Yet still the analogy, although 
unquestionable, is apparently reversed, and most artfully 
disguised ; for these wonderful creatures, instead of 
fabricating, like their representatives, warm and skilful 
nests, beneath the earth, for the protection of their 
young, are provided with a natural nest in the felds of 
their own skin. The marsupial pouch is expressly 
adapted to this purpose ; and within this warm maternal 
nest are the young protected until they can provide for 
themselves. The eau kangaroo (Halmaturus san 
teus Ill., fig. 5 
is the iareest fas 
druped of the Aus- 
tralian range; and 
althougha few other 
marsupial animals 
occur beyond these 
limits, nearly all 
the quadrupeds of 
Australia aig: to ae ee Whether the kanga- 
roos belong to the Linnean order of Glires, or to 
another adjoining group, has not yet, indeed, been 
satisfactorily determined ; but we feel persuaded, from 
analysis, that the celebrated Ornithorhynchus, peculiar 
to these regions, is the link of connection between qua- 
drupeds and birds, and that this passage is effected, 
not by means of the Glires, but by the mest aberrant 
groups of the ungulated quadrupeds. Two thirds of 
the Australian quadrupeds, in fact, are marsupial, and 
make their way with more rapidity by springing in the 
air than by walking. The kangaroos, when using any 
degree of speed, proceed by prodigious leaps ; while the 
fiying phalangers (G. Petaurista), of which six species 
are described, are even more remarkable for this habit 
