118 
VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM. 
Our early authors — Marcgrave, Pison, Valentine, Beverly, the Mar- 
auis OF Chastellux, Pennant, and others, contended that “ the pouch was 
the matrix of the young Opossum, and that the mamm® are. with regard 
to the young, what stalks are to their fruits.” De Blainville and Dr. 
Barton speak of two sorts of gestation, one uterine and the other mam- 
mary. Blumenbach calls the young when they are first seen on the 
mammae, abortions ; and Dr. Barton’s views (we quote from Griffith) 
are surprisingly inaccurate : “ The Didelphes,” he says, “ put forth, not 
foetuses but gelatinous bodies ; they weigh at their first appearance gener- 
ally about a grain, some a little more, and seven of them together weigh- 
ed ten grains.” In 1819, Geoffroy St. Hillaire propounded to naturalists 
the following question : “ Are the pouched animals born attached to 
the teats of the mother?” Godman, in his American Natural History, 
published in 1826, gave to the world a verj^ interesting article on the 
Opossum, full of information in respect to the habits, &c., comprising all 
the knowledge that existed at that day in regard to this species. He was 
obliged, however, to admit, vol. 2, p. 7, “ the peculiarities of its sexual in- 
tercourse, gestation, and parturition, are to this day involved in profound 
obscurity. Volumes of facts and conjectures have been written on the 
subject, in which the proportion of conjecture to fact has been as a thou- 
sand to one, and the difficulties still remain to be surmounted.” And De- 
kay, in the work on the Quadrupeds of the State of N. York, (Nat. Hist, of 
N.York, 1842, p. 4,) states ; “The young are found in the external abdomi- 
nal sac, firmly attached to the teat in the form of a small gelatinous body, not 
weighing more than a grain. It was along time believed that there existed a 
direct passage from the uterus to the teat, but this has been disproved 
by dissection. Another opinion is, that the embryo is excluded from the 
uterus in the usual manner and placed by the mother to the teat ; and a 
third, that the embryo is formed where it is first found. Whether this 
transfer actually takes place, and if so, the physiological considerations 
connected with it, still remain involved in great obscurity.” 
The approaches to truth in these investigations have been very grad- 
ual, and the whole unusually slow. Cowper, Tyson, De Blainville, Home 
and others, by their examinations and descriptions of the organs of the 
Marsupialiae, prepared the way for farther developments. A more judi- 
cious examination and scientific description by Owen and others, of the 
corresponding organs in the kangaroo, the largest of all the species com- 
posing these genera, and the discovery of the foetus in utero, enabled natu- 
ralists to conclude, that the similar structure in the Opossum would 
indicate a corresponding result. No one, however, was entitled to speak 
with positive certainty until the young were actually detected in the 
