MARSUPIALIA. 249 



us in other respects to conjecture, many of them requiring further ob- 

 servations relative to their economy. A neglect in procuring this in- 

 formation has left us almost to this day very ignorant of that part of the 

 natural histoiy of animals which is the most interesting. The opossum 

 is a remarkable instance of this. There is something in the mode of 

 propagation in this animal that deviates from all others ; and although 

 known in some degree to be extraordinary, yet it has never been 

 attempted, where opportunity offered, to complete the investigation. I 

 have often endeavoured to breed them in England : I have bought a 

 great many, and my friends have assisted me by bringing them or 

 sending them alive, yet I never could get them to breed ; and although 

 I have a great many facts respecting them, yet I am not certain that I 

 am possessed of sufficient information to complete [our knowledge of] 

 the system of propagation in this class. 



In collecting animals, even the name given by the natives should be 

 known if possible ; for a name to a naturalist should mean nothing but 

 that to which it is annexed, having no allusion to anything else, for 

 when it has it divides the idea. This observation applies particularly 

 to the animals which have come from New Holland : they are, upon the 

 whole, like no others that we know of ; yet, as they have parts in some 

 respects similar to others, names will naturally be given to them ex- 

 pressive of those similarities, which have really taken place ; for instance, 

 one is called kangaroo-rat, but which should not be called either 

 kangaroo or rat. 



Animals admit of being divided into great classes, but will not so 

 distinctly admit of subdivision without interfering with each other. 

 Thus the class called ' Quadruped ' is so well marked, that even the 

 whole is justly placed in the same class ; birds the same ; amphibia (as 

 they are called) the same; and so of fishes, &c. But when we are 

 subdividing these great classes into their different orders, genera and 

 species, then we find a mixture of properties, some one species of one 

 tribe partaking of some properties of a species of another tribe 1 . 



1 [The above ' General Observations ' were published in Hunter's life-time, in the 

 'Zoological Appendix' to the "Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales," 4to, 

 1790, by John White, Esq., Surveyor-General to the Settlement. Dr. Shaw, who 

 superintended the publication of White's ' Zoological Appendix,' thus introduces the 

 observations contributed by Hunter : — 



" The nondescript animals of New South Wales occupied a great deal of Mr. 

 White's attention, and he preserved several specimens of them in spirits, which 

 arrived in England in a very perfect state. There was no person to whom these 

 could be given with so much propriety as Mr. Hunter, he perhaps being most 

 capable of examining accurately their structure, and making out their place in the 

 scale of animals ; and it is to him that we are indebted for the following observations 



