I OB 
DIDELPHYS VIRGINLANA. 
Inches. 
line*. 
Total length of skull ... ... ... ... 
A 
G 
Width . 
2 
0 
44 between orbits ... 
44 in the temporal region ... . 
1 
0 
54 
Length of nasal bones ... 
Greatest width ... ... ... ... ... 
Width in front ... 
2 
2 
01 
H 
Length of palate ... ... ... ... ... 
44 of four true molar teeth taken together 
2 
5 
44 of principal palatine openings ... 6 
With regard to other parts of the skeleton, there is one 
point which I should not omit to notice, and that relates to 
the structure of the neck, the second, third, fourth, fifth, ami 
sixth vertebra? of which are remarkable for the great develop¬ 
ment of the spinous processes, and more particularly for the 
great thickness, or transverse diameter, of those processes, 
and their mode of junction with each other, which is such 
as to preclude any upward flexure of the neck in the region 
of these vertebrae. I have met with no very satisfactory 
explanation of the use of this structure, which is found not 
only in the Virginian Opossum, but likewise in the D. 
cancrivora, and no doubt in the other large species of 
Didelphys. 
The Virginian Opossum, according to M. Tenmiinck, is 
found from Mexico to the southern provinces of the United 
States; according to Pennant, it occurs also in Brazil mid 
Peru, but in making this statement he has undoubtedly 
confounded some other nearly allied species with the 1). 
Virginiana. This animal is said to be very destructive to 
poultry, sucking their blood, but not eating the flesh ; it feeds 
sequently differs widely from that of the placental Carnivora, in the points jiut 
alluded to, as well as in that remarkable character of the Marsupial brain— the 
almo»t total absence of corpus callosum —which was first pointed out by 
Prof. Owen, and has since been confirmed by the able editors of Cuvier’s 
Anatomic Comparec—See p. 102 of vol. iii. 
