66

chute in their leaps, whence they are called "flying opossums," just as squirrels, similarly provided, are called flying" squirrels.

There are two very aberrant members of this family. One, the koala (Phascolarctus), called the native bear or native sloth, is devoid of any tail.

The other, Tarsipes, but little bigger than a mouse, has a long and pointed muzzle, and its teeth are reduced to minute pointed processes, few in number,

6-6
5-5'

situated far apart in

each jaw. The genus Cuscus, closely allied to Phalangista, is found in New Guinea and the adjacent islands to Timor (Pl. CXXVIII. fig. 3).

FIG. 8.

Another animal, the wombat (Phascolomys), forms by itself a distinct family, Phascolomyida. It is a burrowing nocturnal animal, about the size of a badger, with rudimentary tail and peculiar feet and teeth.

We still find the second and third toes bound together, limbs of equal length, and all the five toes of the fore foot with claws

(as in the last family), but the great toe is represented by a small tubercle, while the cutting teeth are, growing from persistent pulp through life, as in the rats, squirrels, and guinea-pigs (fig. 9).

We may now pass to a very different family of animals belonging to the kangaroo's order. We pass, namely, to the Dasyuride, or family of the native-cat, wolf, and devil, so

FIG. 9.

Teeth of the Wombat (Phascolomys).

named from their predatory or fierce nature. They have welldeveloped eye-teeth (or canines), and back teeth with sharp cutting blades, or bristling with prickly points. The second and third toes are no longer bound together; and, while there are five toes with claws to each fore foot, the great toe is either absent altogether or small. The cutting teeth are, and the tail is long and clothed with hair throughout. Some of these

FIG. 10.

Teeth of Dasyurus.

animals are elegantly coloured and marked, and all live on animal food. This form (belonging to the typical gens Dasyurus, which gives its name to the family) may be taken as a type; but two others merit notice.

The first of these is Myrmecobius, from Western Australia, remarkable for its number of back teeth,

8-8

9-9'

and for certain

geographical and zoological relations, to be shortly referred to. With respect to this creature, Mr. Gilbert has told us:

"I have seen a good deal of this beautiful little animal. It appears very much like a squirrel when running on the ground, which it does in successive leaps, with its tail a little elevated: every now and then raising its body, and resting on its hind feet. When alarmed, it generally takes to a dead tree lying on

the ground, and before entering the hollow invariably raises itself on its hind feet, to ascertain the reality of approaching danger. In this kind of retreat it is easily captured, and when caught is so harmless and tame as scarcely to make any resistance, and never attempts to bite. When it has no chance of escaping from its place of refuge, it utters a sort of half

smothered grunt, apparently produced by a succession of hard breathings.'

The other member of the family Dasyurida, to which I wish to call the reader's attention, is a very different animal from the Myrmecobius. I refer to the largest of the predatory members of the kangaroo's order; namely, to the Tasmanian wolf. It is about the size of the animal after which it is named, and it is marked VOL. XIV.--NO. LVII.

C C

across the loins with tiger-like, black bands (Pl. CXXVIII. fig. 4). It is only found in the island of Tasmania, and will probably very soon become altogether extinct, on account of its destructiveness to the sheep of the colonists. Its teeth have considerable resemblance to those of the dog, and it differs from all other members of the kangaroo's order, in that mere cartilages represent those marsupial bones which every other member of the order unquestionably possesses.

The last family of the kangaroo's order consists of the true opossum, which (unlike all the animals we have as yet passed in review) inhabits not the Australian region, but America only. These creatures vary in size from that of the cat to that of the rat.

They are called Didelphide, and agree with the Dasyurida in having well-developed canine teeth and cutting back teeth;

in having the second and third toes free, and five toes to the fore foot. But they differ in that

19
8

(1) Cutting-teeth (more than in any other animal). (2) A large opposable great-toe.

Such

(3) A tail, naked (like that of the rat) and prehensile. One of them is aquatic in its habits and web-footed. are the very varied forms which compose the six families which together make up the kangaroo's order, and such are the relations borne by the kangaroo's family to the other families of the kangaroo's order.

But to obtain a clear conception of the kangaroo, we must not rest content with a knowledge of its order considered by itself. But we must endeavour to learn the relation of its order to the other orders of that highest class of animals to which the kangaroo and we ourselves both belong, viz. the class Mammalia, which class, with the other classes, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes together, makes up the back-boned or vertebrate primary division of the whole animal kingdom.

What, then, is the relation of the kangaroo's order-the MARSUPIALIA-to the other orders of the class Mammalia?