Zhc pouchcb Hnimals. 



FOURTEENTH ORDER: Marsupialia. 



AMMALIA, except those of 

 the Apes, the Whales and 

 the Momotremes, includes 

 no order which is equally 

 important, or more worthy 

 of the attention of natural- 

 ists and students, than that 

 of the Pouched Animals, 

 or Marsupials. Close con- 

 sideration of the latter 

 order shows that under this 

 classification are ranged 

 families which have little 

 in common except the 

 pouch and the mode and organs of propagation, 

 and which could be, not inaptly, grouped as inde- 

 pftident orders of a distinct sub-class of mammals. 

 Examination of these animals leads involuntarily 

 to the opinion that we have before us a group which 

 was in the palmy period of its existence in the ages 

 when lived and thrived the shapeless amphibia of 

 the mainland, the Flying Lizards of the air, and the 

 marine Dragons of the sea. Very weighty evidence 

 indicates that the Pouched Animals are only slightly 

 modified offspring of mammals of bygone periods 

 of creation and development. 



By comparing a Pouched Animal to a beast of 

 prey or to a rodent, the dullest eye will instantane- 

 ously perceive that the Pouched Animal is in all 

 respects much less developed and perfected than 

 the corresponding predaceous or gnawing mammal. 

 This shortcoming of the Pouched Animal is found 

 •either in the formation of the body, or in the con- 

 struction of some of the limbs, or in the dentition. 

 "We speak with pleasure of the graceful frame of 

 many carnivores or rodents, but it is seldom that we 

 experience the same feeling in regard to a Pouched 

 Animal. At best some one species may excite our 

 Avonder, but not our pleasurable emotions; another 

 our sense of the ludicrous; a third simply repels us. 

 Something is always wanting in a Pouched Animal 

 to meet the sense of propriety of one accustomed 

 to other animal forms. In examining the dentition, 

 our opinion of the importance of the animal is no 

 more favorable; for the teeth, also, seem imperfect 

 .and deficient, compared to those of the corre- 

 sponding carnivores and rodents. The predaceous 

 Pouched Animal has a sufificient number of teeth 

 in its mouth, and they are arranged in a manner 

 similar to those of the beasts of prey, but they are 

 always less developed. What holds good in respect 

 to the predaceous Pouched Animals may also be 

 said of the others, and thus the impression that the 

 Marsupials are imperfect and insufficiently devel- 

 oped beings seems thoroughly justified. 



General Charac- Little can be said of the bodily form- 



■teriatics of Pouched cLtion of the Marsupials in general. 



Animals. The various members of the order, 



as to physical characteristics, differ more from one 



another than do those of any other order. Natu- 

 rally, the formation of the digestive organs and, in a 

 certain sense, also the articulation of the supporting 

 bony skeleton, harmonizes with the dentition, and as 

 the order of the Pouched Animals contains genuine 

 carnivorous forms as well as true vegetable; feeders, 

 and even groups recalling to mind the traits of the 

 ruminants, we would hardly be justified in speaking 

 of a prevailing type among the members of this 

 order. Without considering the size, which ranges 

 between that of a medium-sized Deer and that of a 

 Shrew, no other order comprises such a variety of 

 animals, and it seems unnecessary to say anything in 

 this place that would have to be repeated in the 

 course of description. A common characteristic of 

 all members of the order is the structure of the 

 organs of reproduction and the possession of mar- 

 supial (or pouch) bones. These latter are formed 

 from the tendons of the external oblique abdominal 

 muscle, which are inserted in front into the pubis, 

 ossify and thus become the so-called marsupial-' 

 bones, found also in the male, but in the female 

 probably serving to protect, by strengthening the 

 abdominal wall, the young placed in the pouch from 

 the pressure exerted by the abdominal viscera.. The 

 mammae, to which the newborn young attach them- 

 selves, are situated in the pouch. This pouch may 

 be a perfect pocket, or degenerate into merely two 

 folds of skin, or be entirely rudimentary. The 

 young are born under conditions not found existing 

 in any other higher mammal. They are sinkll, 

 naked and blind and their limbs are mere stubs. . 

 Birth and Deuel- The female Pouched Animal gives 

 opmentof Mar- birth to its young in an immature 

 aupials. state of development, takes them up 

 in its mouth and puts them to the mammse. There 

 they remain until the organs of sense and the limbs 

 have developed, and, in the forms possessing a devel- 

 oped pouch, this latter is, during this time, not only 

 a nest and refuge for the young, but also the place 

 in which it develops into a perfect infant. Thence 

 the young one undertakes excursions later, which it 

 gradually extends; but it spends its entire infancy 

 suckling, and with more than one member of this 

 remarkable order the embryonic period preceding 

 birth lasts only a month or little more, while its 

 development during pouch-life extends through a 

 period lasting from six to eight months. In the case 

 of the Giant Kangaroo, the little animal puts its 

 head out of the pouch about nine weeks before it 

 first leaves it, and for about nine weeks more the 

 young creature lives part of the time in the pouch 

 and the remainder outside of it. The number of 

 young may be quite large. 



Habitat and Attri- The Marsupials at present inhabit 



butes of the Australia and a few adjacent islands, 



Marsupials. South and North America. In 



America the members of one family only are found, 



and the majority of species exist in the southern 



(579) 



