POUCH 



In the ]\Iiirsupiids the pouch shelters the youug, whicli are 

 bom in an exceedingly imperfect state, minute, nude, and blind, 

 with a " larval " mouth fitted only to grasp in a permanent 

 fashion the teat, upon which they are carefully fixed by the 

 parent. But even later the pouch is made use of as a tempoi'ary 

 harbour of refuge ; from the pouch of female Kangaroos at the 

 Zoological Gardens may frequently be observed to protrude the tail 



g. VI. 



Fici. '3. — Echidna Jn/strix. A, Lower surface of LrooJiiig ft^male ; B, dissection showing 

 a dorsal view of tlie pouch and mammary glands ; tt, the two tufts of hair in the 

 lateral folds of the mammary pouch from which the secretion flows, b.m, Pouch ; 

 c/, cloaca ; g.vi, groups of mammary glands. (From Wiedersheim's ComporcUice 

 Anatomy, after W. Haacke.) 



and hind-legs of a young Kangaroo as big as a CJat, and perfectly 

 well able to take care of itself. 



In the . Monotremata (in Echidna) there is a deep fold of 

 the skin which lodges the unhatched egg, and into which the 

 mammary glands open, one on either side. This structure is only 

 periodically developed, and arises from two rudiments, one corre- 

 sponding to each mammary area ; but in the female with eggs or 

 young there is but a single deep depression, which occupies the 

 same region of the body as the marsupial pouch of the Mar- 



