Page:Mammalia (Beddard).djvu/143

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whole in the Polyprotodont forms, such as the Thylacine, Dasyures, etc., but is found in so many of them that the two divisions of the Marsupials, the Diprotodonts and the Polyprotodonts, cannot be raised to distinct orders on this and other grounds. The marsupial pouch of the Marsupials must not, as has been already pointed out, be confounded with the pouch of the

Fig. 59.—Rock Wallaby (Petrogale xanthopus), with young in pouch. × 17. (After Vogt and Specht.)

Monotreme mammals. Distinct teats are found in the marsupium of the Marsupials, while there are none in the mammary pouch of the Monotreme, the pouch itself indeed representing an undifferentiated teat, of which the walls have not closed up. The pouch opens forward in the Kangaroos, and backwards in the Phalangers and in the Polyprotodonts. Its walls are supported by a pair of bones diverging from each other in a -shaped manner; these are cartilaginous and vestigial in the Thylacine. They