Macropus Major. Shaw.

The very peculiar¹ structure from which the Marsupial² animals derive³ their name has been regarded by almost every naturalist⁴ who has written on the subject as so essential a deviation⁵ from the common type, that, setting aside all considerations of form or habits, and regardless even of those technical characters on which so much reliance is usually placed, they have for the most part agreed in uniting under the same family designation every animal in which it occurred. This peculiarity⁶ consists in a folding or doubling of the skin and its appendages⁷ beneath the lower part of the belly⁸ in the females, in such a manner as to form an open pouch⁹ or[156] bag, in which the young are contained from a very early period, in which the process of suckling takes place, and in which, even for some time after they have acquired sufficient size and strength to leave it, the little ones continue to take refuge.

But the presence of this one anomalous¹⁰ characteristic is accompanied by so many striking discrepancies¹¹ in other parts, that, limited as this tribe is in number, most of the principal forms of Mammalia find analogous¹² representations among its groups. Thus the Opossums exhibit characters in some measure intermediate between the Quadrumana and the Carnivora, to which latter the Dasyuri, another Marsupial group, closely resembling the Civets in form and habits, approach very nearly; while the herbivorous races of the tribe might occupy a station between the

分享到：