18 
MAMMALIA. 
more recent litters, adhering to their respective mammas. It is 
for this reason that the female Marsupials always possess more 
mammae than the number of young produced at each litter. 
Nearly all the Marsupials belong exclusively to the Australian 
region ; where, moreover, very few other kinds of Mammalia are 
found. A single family, that of the true Opossums (Didelphidce ) , 
inhabits America. 
That which is amazing is, that we find in this order a series of 
groups analogous to those of the ordinary Mammalia : Insectivora, 
Podentia, Carnivora, Puminantia, Quadrumana. Cuvier was not 
mistaken, therefore, when he wrote, in 1829, in his Regne Animal , 
“ One should say that the Marsupials form a class apart, parallel 
to that of the ordinary quadrupeds, and divisible into like orders.” 
This opinion has been still further confirmed by the discovery of 
fossil remains belonging to some species of great size, which must 
have corresponded with our Pachydermata. Professor Owen and 
others have made out some fossilized species of this order which 
were considerably larger than a Horse. 
The remains of Marsupials have been collected in the gypsum 
strata near Paris, in Auvergne, and in England. In geological 
times, then, Europe possessed marsupial animals, and perhaps 
in a very remote age the Marsupials composed an entire class, 
parallel to that of the Mammalia, as Cuvier suggested.* 
The order of Marsupials is divided into four families, viz. : 
the Phascolomes, the Syndactyles, the Hasyures, and the Opossums 
or Didelphes. 
The Family oe the Phascolomes.— The Phascolomes, or 
Wombats, are the representatives of the Podentia among the 
Marsupials. Like them, they are characterised by the absence of the 
canine teeth and the existence of an unoccupied space between the 
incisors and the molars. Their toes, to the number of five to the 
extremity of each limb, are provided with nails, suited for digging. 
There is only one genus in this family, and it contains three 
well-determined species : the Common Wombat (. Phascalomys 
wombat , Eig. 3)*, the Flat-nosed Wombat (P. platyrhinus ) , and the 
* The most ancient of known Mammalia occur in the triassic formation. Others 
n the “ dirt-bed ” which underlies the lias. The Insectivora, as well as the Marsu- 
piata, appear to have had representatives at those exceedingly remote geological eras. 
All hitherto discovered were of diminutive size. — E d. 
