RODENTIA. 
107 
would therefore be necessary to rank among the Rodentia. We should even have placed it there, 
had we not been gradually led to it by an uninterrupted series from the Opossums to the Phalan- 
gers, thence to the Kangaroos, and from the Kangaroos to the Wombat.* Their reproductive organs 
are entirely similar to those of other Marsupiata. 
They are sluggish animals, with large flat heads, and bodies that appear as if crushed. They are 
without a tail; have five nails on each of the fore-feet, and four, with a small tubercle in place of a j 
thumb, on each of the hind ones, all very long and adapted for burrowing. Their gait is remarkably 
slow. They have two long incisors to each jaw, almost similar to those of the Rodentia, [but which 
oppose flat surfaces to each other, and not chisel-like edges, as in the latter] ; and their grinders have 
each two transverse ridges. 
They subsist on herbage, and have a large and pear-formed stomach, and short and wide coecum, 
furnished (like that of Man and the Ourang-outang) with a vermiform appendage. The penis is forked, 
as in the Opossums. 
One species only is known {Bid. ursina, Shaw) ; of the size of a Badger ; the fur abundant, and of a more or less 
yellowish-brown. It is found in Van Diemen’s Land, where it lives in its burrow; and breeds readily in confine- 
ment. The flesh is said to be excellent. [The skin of this animal is remarkably thick, and curiously attached to 
the hip-bones : its eyes are unusually small. When attacked, it grunts like a Pig ; and is found at various eleva- 
tions, burrowing in the forests and low grounds, and retiring to crevices in the upper. To the colonists, it is 
generally known as the Badger. 
The Marsupiata are distributed by Prof, Owen, in conformity with the structure of their 
digestive organs, as follows *. — - 
1. The coecum altogether 2 h^tni.—Thylacynus, Dasyurus, PTiascogale, and probably 
Myrmecobius. 
2. With a small codCum.—DidelpMs and Cheironectes j Perameles, and probably Thy- 
lacomys. 
3. Coecum of large ^izQ.—Phascolarctos, Phalangista, Petaurus. 
4. The stomach complicated.— ikfacro^M5 and Hypsiprymnus. 
5. Coecum with a vermiform appendage. — Phascalomys. 
This arrangement appears to be perfectly in accordance with the affinities of these animals : 
though, at the same time, it may be added that the Wombat {Phascalomys) might properly 
form a distinct order of Ovovivipera.'] 
THE FIFTH ORDER OF MAMMALIANS. 
ROBENTIA. 
We have just seen, in the Phalangers, canines so small, that we can hardly consider them 
as such. The nutriment of these animals, accordingly, is chiefly derived from the vegetable 
kingdom. Their intestines are long, and the coecum simple ; and the Kangaroos, which have 
no canines at all, subsist on vegetables only. The Wombat might commence that series of 
animals of which we are now about to speak, and which have a system of manducation even 
less complete. 
Two large incisors in each jaw, separated from the molars by a wide interval, cannot well 
seize a living prey, or devour flesh. They are unable even to cut the aliment; but they 
serve to flle, and by continued labour, to reduce it into small particles ; in a word, to gnaw 
it : hence the name Rodentia applied to the animals of this order : it is thus that they suc- 
* This gradation is, however, more apparent than real, as regards I never cease growing at the base, as their crowns wear away by 
the Wombat, which differs from all other Marsupiata in the persist- 1 attrition.— Kn. 
ency of the formative pulps of its teeth, which, in consequence, I 
