Volume 1

Cassell's popular natural history.

Date:
[1865-1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cassell's popular natural history. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    790/824 (page 348)
    The animals of the present Order differ essentially in their organisation from all others. They com- prehend genera living on every variety of nutriment : thus, some are insectivorous or carnivorous, others herbivorous, and others frugivorous, and differing also in their habits—some being diurnal, and others nocturnal. A corresponding modification is, therefore, manifest of the teefh and digestive organs, as well as of those of prehension and progression. The distinctness of the Marsupials rests on physiological grounds ; in fact, on their structure and economy relating to the reproduction of the species, on the abbreviated term of gestation, and on the young being received, in their immature condition, into the marsupium, or pouch ; where, attaching itself to the teats, it receives nutriment and grows, till it is able to provide for itself. The marsupium is, sometimes, nothing more than a fold of skin—at others, this is wanting ; but two bones, situated on the anterior part of the pelvis, and called the marsupial bones, are always present. On the structure of these animals, Professor Owen has thrown great light. We now proceed succinctly to describe some of the genera and sub-genera. One genust has forty-six teeth. The incisors are ranged in a semicircle, equal, and separated in the middle in each jaw by a vacant space ; the external incisor on each side is the stoutest; the canines are of considerable size, curved and pointed, like those of cats and dogs; the last molars are armed with three obtuse tubercles; there are five toes on each fore foot and four on each hind foot. THE DOG-HEADED TlIYLACrNUS.J I his creature, called by a variety of names, as zebra, opossum, and zebra-wolf, is a native of Van Diemen s Land. In stature it nearly equals a wolf; the head strongly resembles that of a dog, but ilar upiula, or Manupialia, from marsupium, a purse or bag, + Tliyladnua: Temmiark. ? Tbylucinua C) nocephalus. * ANIMALS.* POUCH- BEARING