. The cyclopædia of anatomy and physiology. Anatomy; Physiology; Zoology. 262 MARSUPIALIA. into a thumb, but without a claw. The hinder hand is associated in almost all the species with a scaly prehensile tail. In some of the smaller Opossums the sub- abdominal tegumentary folds are rudimental, or merely serve to conceal the nipples, and are not developed into a pouch : the young in these species adhere to the mother by entwining their little prehensile tails around her's; and they cling to the fur of the back, hence the term dor»igera applied to one of these Opos- sums.* Tribe III. CARPOPHAGA
. The cyclopædia of anatomy and physiology. Anatomy; Physiology; Zoology. 262 MARSUPIALIA. into a thumb, but without a claw. The hinder hand is associated in almost all the species with a scaly prehensile tail. In some of the smaller Opossums the sub- abdominal tegumentary folds are rudimental, or merely serve to conceal the nipples, and are not developed into a pouch : the young in these species adhere to the mother by entwining their little prehensile tails around her's; and they cling to the fur of the back, hence the term dor»igera applied to one of these Opos- sums.* Tribe III. CARPOPHAGA. Stomach simple ; coecum very long. In this family the teeth, especially those at the anterior part of the mouth, present consider- able deviations from the previously described formulae ; the chief of which is a predomi- nating size of the two anterior incisors, both in the upper and lower jaws. Hitherto we have seen that the dentition in every marsupial genus has participated more or less in a carni- vorous character ; henceforth it will manifest a tendency to the Rodent type. Genus PHALANGISTA. The Phalangers, so called from the phalanges of the second and third digits of the hinder ex- tremity being inclosed in a common sheath of integument, have the innermost digit modi- fied to answer the purposes of a thumb; and this hinder hand being associated in many of the species with a prehensile tail, they evidently, of all Frugivora, come nearest to the arboreal species of the preceding section. In a system framed on locomotive characters they would rank in the same section with the Opossums. We shall see, however, that they differ from those Entomophagous Marsupials in the con- dition of the intestinal tube. Let us examine to what extent the dental characters deviate from those of the Opossums. Fig. Phalaiirjista Cookii. In the skull of a Phalangixta Cookii, of which the dental formula is accurately given in Jig. 86, there are both in the upper and lower jaws four true m
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