186 OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANATOMY OF 
New Holland, of watching the progress of this function in 
different species, and of dissecting the recent animals in 
every stage of gestation. 
Geoffroy de St Hilaire has removed much of the confu- 
sion which formerly existed in the natural history of mar- 
supial animals, by subdividing and defining the genera, 
and by pointing out new and interesting anatomical rela- 
tions among the species ; and he has thrown much light on 
their physiology, by his profound and ingenious observa- 
tions on the distribution of the two hypogastric arteries in 
these animals, and on the consequences which result from 
that distribution. The genus Perameles was instituted by 
him in 1804, for the reception of two rare species ; one of 
which has been figured and described in the " Naturalist's 
Miscellany,'' and in Shaw's " General Zoology," from a 
specimen in the Hunterian Museum of London, under the 
name of Didelplm obesula (P. obesula of Geoffroy); the 
other was a new species, first described by him, and which 
he named Perameles nasuta^ from the lengthened form of 
the nose. These two species are both from New Holland, 
and are among the most rare and least known of marsupial 
animals. They are termed Perameles^ from their general 
resemblance to the badger, and from their possessing a dis- 
tinct marsupium (from n»jg;c, a pouch, and meles^ a badger). 
The two species of Perameles belong to the genus Didel- 
phis of Linnaeus and Shaw, and to the Thylaces of lUiger. 
There is a specimen of each species preserved in the Mu- 
seum of Paris ; but the descriptions of their external cha- 
racters are still very imperfect and contradictory, we are 
still entirely unacquainted with their natural habits, and 
the internal structure of neither species has yet been ex- 
amined. In Mr Shaw's figure of the Perameles obesula, 
in the Naturalist's Miscellany, two toes are represented as 
united under the common integuments, as far as the roots 
