256 
PH A LA N (i I ST I D.E. 
of the underwood or scrub, and the present family ( Phalan - 
glutidie) is composed of animals which are expert climbers, 
and living upon trees, feed upon their leaves, buds, and fruits. 
The Phulongers are nocturnal in their habits, remaining 
concealed during the day on the branches, or in the hollows 
of trees; at twilight they quit their hiding places, and climb 
amongst the branches to seek their food. Generally speak¬ 
ing, they are not very active in their movements; but, 
among the smaller species, forming the section Pctaurus, 
are some to which this remark will by no means apply, 
since they are extremely agile. The Plmlangers possess 
six incisor teeth in the upper jaw, and two in the lower; 
a canine on either side of the upper jaw, and a preinolar and 
four (or rarely three) true molars on each side of both 
jaws; but besides these, there are, in most of the spe¬ 
cies, some small teeth placed between the canine and 
principal premolar in the upper jaw, and between the great 
incisor and the molars, already noticed, in the lower jaw 1 . 
These small teeth are never more than three in number oil 
either side of each jaw: Lhey vary in the different species, 
and not unfrequentlv there are fewer on one side of the jaw 
than on the other, in the same species. If we except these 
small premolars, which are sometimes entirely wanting, as in 
the Koala, the dentition of the Plmlangers is numerically the 
1 Whether any of these small teeth, when present in the lower jaw, repre¬ 
sent the canine in the carnivorous or insectivorous species of Marsupials, it is 
difficult to determine, hut it is highly probable that that tooth is represented 
by the foremost of the small teeth in question. In the l’hascogaJcs, 
where the two foremost of the lower incisors are large, compared to the same 
teeth in the Dasyuri, their increased development is, as it were, nt the expense 
of the poste rior incisors, which arc very small, and the canine which follows 
them is but moderately developed: in species presenting still larger lower 
front incisors, like the rhulangcrs, we should be prepared, therefore, in the 
first place, for the absence of the posterior incisors; uiid, in the next, for a 
reduced size of the canine. 
