ORDER CARNASS1ER. Q 



These notions are also common in Virginia, even among 

 physicians. Beverley says, that the young Opossums exist 

 in the false belly, without ever entering the true, and are 

 developed on the teats of the mother. The Marquess of 

 Chastellux makes a similar remark. Hence Pennant says, 

 " That suspended to the mammae of the mother, they 

 remain there at first without motion : this lasts until they 

 have acquired some development and strength ; but then 

 they undergo a second birth." 



A French gentleman, who accompanied La Fayette to 

 America, was taken prisoner by the Creeks, and afterwards 

 became chief of a savage tribe, has often assured M. Geof- 

 froy, that he brought up a number of Opossums, and 

 always observed that the young were born on the teats 

 within the pouch. 



Such a number of testimonies had a considerable effect 

 in Europe. Naturalists procured pouched animals ; they 

 had never conceived, or thought of admitting, but one 

 hypothesis : being convinced that anatomical inspection 

 was unfavourable to this, they agreed to reject the facts, 

 and deny their possibility. The most celebrated naturalists 

 and anatomists of the period to which we allude, sought 

 and did not find the direct and interior road from the 

 matrix to the pouch. The Marsupiata were then considered 

 as beings, whose premature birth was compensated, for by 

 a sort of ( incubation in the pouch. " It would be de- 

 sirable," says Buffon, " to observe living Sarigues, and 

 more particularly that their precocious exclusion from the 

 uterus should be examined : by such observation- we might 

 doubtless obtain some insight into the method of preserv- 

 ing the lives of children prematurely born ! The gestation of 

 these beings having been proportionally short, the period 

 of their lactation would be lengthened. " So small are 

 they," says Blumenbach, " when born, that they may well 

 be called abortions." Thus persevering in the system of a 

 second, but premature, birth, naturalists imagined that a 



