il2 
LOWER MAMMAL GALLERY. 
Tasimiuian settlers, owing to the havoc it created among their 
sheep ; but it has now been nearly exterminated, and at no 
distant period will be quite extinct. No Thylacynes now live 
on the continent of Australia, but their fossil remains have been 
found in bone-caves in New South Wales. 
The second largest member of the family is the well-known 
Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus ursmus ( 1482 ), which has earned 
its English name by its untamable disposition and the damage it 
does to poultry and game. 
The Native Cats, or Dasyures (1477 to 1481 ), are smallianimals 
of about the size and proportions of a Cat. They are wholly 
carnivorous, living on eggs, small birds, mammals, and insects, 
and thus corresponding in their habits to the Weasels, Martens, 
and other small placental Carnivora ; while the still smaller 
species of PJiascologale (1470 to 1474 ) and Smintliopsis ( 1476 ), 
which range from tlie size of a Rat to that of a Mouse, and live 
on insects, worms, &c., represent the placental Insectivora. 
Their teeth are numerous, small, and covered with sharp-pointed 
cusps. 
The Banded, or Marsupial, Anteater, Myrmecohius fasciatus 
( 1469 ), is one of the few Mammals marked with cross-bars. 
About the size and shape of a Squirrel, it has a long pointed 
snout and extensile tongue, with which it catches ants and other 
small insects. It is a native of Western Australia, and is 
remarkable for the large number of its teeth, the dentition 
being I. |, C. P. + M. § = 54. The teeth are small and 
sharply cusped. 
The American Opossums (fig. 61), or Didelphyidce, resemble 
in their dentition the Basyurida’, and in the structure of their 
feet the Phalangers, the first hind-toe being opposable to the 
other toes, and so forming a posterior pair of hands. The 
dental formula is I. f, C. P. + M. = 50. 
The species of American Opossums are numerous, but in no 
family of equal extent are there so few differences in the 
characters of the skeleton — the skulls, teeth, and proportions of 
the limbs being in all nearly identical. 
These Opossums are almost the only living extra-Australian 
members of the order, being limited to America, where they 
