318 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



toward the lower part, are furnished with vertical fibres? 

 flat at top, not planted in alveoli, but simply attached to 

 the gum ; the tongue is short, and furnished with papillae, 

 and two aculeated horny points. The organs of generation 

 are not outwardly apparent, and in common with the rest 

 of the tribe, the animal has but one opening. There are 

 no visible mammae; but whether the animal be absolutely 

 without them, or whether they have hitherto escaped detec- 

 tion, or are only developed when they are wanted, is not 

 quite ascertained. If they are altogether wanting, we can 

 only suppose that the young are contained in the uterus 

 long enough to exist without lactation when they are born. 

 Some details of the internal organization may be desired 

 of an animal so new and curious. The cavity of the cra- 

 nium is spacious ; the maxillary bone singularly elongated 

 before, and is furnished with a long spatulous apephyse for 

 supporting the horny beak ; there are altogether forty-nine 

 vertebrae — seven cervical, seventeen dorsal, two lumbar, 

 two sacral, and twenty-one caudal, the eight first of which 

 are especially provided with very elongated transverse 

 apophyses; the first piece of the sternum has also on 

 each side a sort of transverse apophyse. There are seven- 

 teen ribs, eleven of which are false; the clavicles are very 

 thin; the omoplate is shaped like a hedging-bill, and has a 

 thick part appended, which joins the sternum ; the basin is 

 provided, as in all the marsupiata, with two long triangu- 

 lar bones articulated at their base to the pubis, stretching 

 forward and diverging,; there is an epiglottis to the larynx ; 

 the heart, like that of the Mammalia, has two auricles and 

 two ventricles ; the lungs are large, elongated, and free, 

 with three lobes on the right side, according to Sir Everard 

 Home, and four according to Cuvier; the diaphragm is 

 large ; the stomach is very small ; the caecum is small ; the 

 spleen is larger than the stomach, rectangular, and formed 

 of two elongated lobes ; the liver is large, composed of four 



