the RODENTIA, and between the Duck-bill and Spiny Ant-eater, and the EDENTATA.

The largest and most attractive, as well as most valuable animals of this Class, are the Kangaroos (Macropus). Every child is familiar with its elegant taper figure, its gentle deer-like face, its short fore-feet dangling at its breast as it stands erect on its long and powerful hind limbs and its immense tail. There are few, moreover, who have not read of its singular mode of progression, by vast leaps, through the Australian scrubs. Its flesh is excellent venison, and the European settlers hunt it with hound and horse. Mr Gregson describes in a graphic manner a fine run of eighteen miles, performed by an old boomer, as the Great Kangaroo is called, and adds the following more general notes of its habits, with which we dismiss the MARSUPIALIA:—

"We did not measure the distance of the hop of the Kangaroo; but on another occasion, in which the boomer had taken along the beach, and left the prints in the sand, the length of each jump was found to be fifteen feet, and as regular as if they had been stepped by a sergeant. When a boomer is pressed, he is very apt to take to the water, and then it requires several good dogs to kill him; for he stands waiting for them, and as they swim up to the attack, he takes hold of them with his fore-feet, and holds them under water. The buck is very bold, and will generally make a stout resistance; for if he cannot get to the water, he will place his back against a tree so that he cannot be attacked from behind, and then the best dog will find him a formidable antagonist. The doe, on the contrary, is a very timid creature, and I have even seen one die of fear."*

* Gould's "Mamm. of Austr."

CHAPTER XXXV.

MAMMALIA (Quadrupeds).

Continued.

A YEAR or two ago, the great "lion" in the Zoological Gardens, which all London was running to see, was an uncouth, lanky, low-limbed creature, with extraordinary longitude of snout, and as conspicuous bushiness of tail. An ample apartment, duly indexed and labelled, as became the rarity of the tenant, was assigned to it, so that it could not only be well seen, but thoroughly examined. Its colours, sober brown and silvery gray, and its fine collar of black velvet edged with white, redeemed its odd figure from the character of vulgarity; but the manner in which it walked was something quite original. Its fore-legs were. short, but very stout and muscular, and terminated in enormous claws, which were habitually bent in under the feet, so that the animal rested on their outer surfaces, pretty much in the same fashion (if we may use a homely simile familiar to Londoners) as your maid-of-all-work supports herself on her left knuckles when she cleans the door-steps.

This was the Great Ant-bear (Myrmecophaga jubata), from South America, a harmless creature, notwithstanding

its muscular strength. It feeds on ants, and on termites, or white ants, as they are called, whose great houses of cemented earth, that are so common in tropical forests, are torn to pieces by these great claws, that the swarming insects may be exposed and devoured. And this last operation is not less singular than other parts of the economy of this creature. Its mouth, long and tubular, is entirely destitute of teeth, but contains a tongue of great length, ordinarily folded on itself, and capable of rapid protrusion to a long distance. When the termites crowd to the broken surface of their nest, as is their custom, the shrewd Ant-bear darts into the midst of them his long tongue covered with a glutinous secretion, and as swiftly draws it back into his mouth, densely covered with the adhering insects.

This curious animal is a fair representative of a group which includes the lowest forms of the true or placental Mammalia-the Class EDENTATA. As Australia is the great centre of the MARSUPIALIA, SO South America is the home of the EDENTATA, of which the Sloths and the Armadillos are, after the example just described, the most important living members. But recent discoveries have exhumed from the soil of the same continent other and far more gigantic representatives of the Class, the Megatheriums and Mylodons, the vast bulk of whose bones indicates that their strength must have been as irresistible as their forms were colossal. Professor Owen, who built up, bone by bone, that noble "skeleton of an extinct gigantic Sloth," that stands—a monument of his skill and knowledge-in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, has given some interesting deductions respecting its mode of life.

Y

He concludes that the Mylodon - a leaf-eater, like its modern cousins the Sloths of Brazil-having partly exposed the roots of a living tree, by means of its powerful front claws adapted for digging, was accustomed to rear itself up on the broad tripod formed by its own immense hindfeet and its strong tail, and embracing the trunk of the tree with its fore-feet, put forth all its mighty strength in striving to overthrow it. "The tree being thus partly undermined, and firmly grappled with the muscles of the body, the pelvis, and the hind limbs, animated by the nervous influence of the unusually large spinal cord, would combine their forces with those of the anterior members in the efforts at prostration. And now let us picture to ourselves the massive frame of the Megatherium, convulsed with the mighty wrestling, every vibrating fibre re-acting upon its bony attachment with a force which the strong and sharp crests and apophyses loudly bespeak: extraordinary must have been the strength and proportions of that tree, which, rocked to and fro, to right and left, in such an embrace, could long withstand the efforts of its ponderous assailant."

The populous Class of mostly small quadrupeds, known as RODENTIA, or Gnawers-of which the Rabbit and the Rat are familiar examples-rise but little, in the scale of organization, above the EDENTATA. They display but little intelligence, have few means of defence, are timid and feeble, and as they are the prey of many enemies, they are preserved from extermination only by their amazing fertility. Their peculiar dentition is, moreover, intermediate between the toothless condition of the Ant-bears and that of the well-armed jaws of the higher quadrupeds; for they are

Skull of Rodent.

altogether destitute of canines, and their incisors, which are separated by a great blank space from the molars, are furnished with enamel only on one side. They project from the front of each jaw in a curve; and, as they have no roots, but spring from a pulpy germ deeply embedded in their sockets, they are continually growing. These peculiarities have a direct relation to the habits of the animals; for they live upon food, usually hard and solid, which they gnaw away atom by atom, with the tips of these projecting teeth. For this work it is needful that the tips of the teeth, which meet and play upon each other, should have a sharp chisel-like edge, and this result follows from the provision above mentioned, that the hard enamel is confined to the front side of the tooth; the bony portion of the tip, being soft, wears away more rapidly than the enamel of the front, which thus always presents a sharp cutting edge. The constant growth, too, just balances the ordinary wear of the teeth in eating, so that they are maintained in constant opposibility to each other. The perfection of this balance becomes manifest, when, by accident, one of the incisor teeth is lost; for, in this case, the opposite tooth, having no wear, grows out to a monstrous length, maintaining its original curve throughout, and becomes a tusk, which in time presents a bar to the reception of food, and death by starvation ensues.

Strange as it may be thought, there is an affinity by no means obscure, between these minute animals and the