TARSIPES. 
843 
midway between the extremities; the cardiac end nearly 
spherical: the mesial portion much contracted; and, from 
that part to the pylorus, the stomach becomes gradually 
narrower. Intestines exceeding the entire length of the 
animal by about one half, simple, slender, and destitute of 
ccecum 1 . 
Female with a distinct pouch: mammae four in number. 
It will be seen that the dental formula above given does 
not agree precisely with that given by Messrs. Gervais and 
Verreaux, and the difference, there are good reasons for 
believing, arises from a want of constancy in the number of 
the very minute teeth with which the jaws of our little animal 
are furnished. In a carefully preserved skull before me, I do 
not even find the same number on opposite sides of the jaw, 
there being three molars on one side of the upper jaw, and 
four on the other. The canines, which are rather more de¬ 
veloped, and the lower incisors, are probably the only teeth 
which will be found constant in all individuals. 
In two skulls of Tarsipes, I find four minute transparent 
incisors situated on the fore part of the intermaxillary bones; 
these are distinctly separated from each other, and, between 
1 The specimen dissected by me was a female, and not in the best of condi¬ 
tions for examination. I feel pretty certain, however, that the points above 
noticed will prove to be correct. I found the small intestines of a little 
Phalanger (the Dromicia Neillii), although the animal was of smaller size 
than the Tarsipes, not only proportionately longer, but having a greater 
diameter. The stomach was simple, had the longitudinal diameter about one- 
fourth greater than the vertical, the cardiac end large and spherical, the depth 
of the opposite end about one-third less than that of the cardiac, and the 
oesophagus entering near the middle. The coecum was 8 J lines in length ; the 
small intestines about 5 inches, and the large about inches in length ; the 
length of the animal being 2£ inehes, from the tip of the nose to the root of 
the tail. The coecum is therefore smaller in proportion in this little Phalanger 
than in the larger species of the group, and such is found to be the case in 
the small Petauri, in which the dentition approaches to that of the insectivorous 
Phascogales, where the coecum is absent—in some at least, I may say, according 
to my own observations. 
