CHAPTER VII
EUTHERIA—MARSUPIALIA
Order I. MARSUPIALIA[1]
The Marsupials may be thus defined:—Terrestrial, arboreal, or burrowing (rarely aquatic) mammals, with furry integuments; palate generally somewhat imperfectly ossified; jugal bone reaching as far as the glenoid cavity; angle of lower jaw nearly always inflected. The clavicle is developed. Arising from the pubes are well developed and ossified epipubic bones. Fourth toe usually the most pronounced. Teeth often exceed the typical Eutherian number of forty-four; molars generally four on each side of each jaw. As a rule but one tooth of the milk set is functional, which is (according to many) the fourth premolar. Teats lying within a pouch, in which the young are placed. Young born in an imperfect condition, and showing certain larval characters. There is a shallow cloaca. The testes are extra-abdominal, but hang in front of the penis. In the brain the cerebellum is completely exposed; the hemispheres are furrowed, but the corpus callosum is rudimentary. An allantoic placenta is rarely present.
Structurally the Marsupials are somewhat intermediate between the Prototheria and the more typical Eutheria, with a greater resemblance to the latter.
The name Marsupial indicates what is perhaps the most salient character of this order. The pouch in which the young are carried is almost universally present. It is less developed on the
- ↑ Works dealing exclusively with the Marsupials are: Lydekker, in Allen's Naturalists' Library, 1894; Aflalo, Natural History of Australia, Macmillan and Co. 1896; Waterhouse, Natural History of Mammalia, i. London, 1848; Oldfield Thomas, British Museum Catalogue of Marsupialia and Monotremata, 1888.
