Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/274

264 agglutinated hairs, similar to the bezoars often — found in goats and oxen, are occasionally met with in the stomach of the Kangaroo. A true ruminating power appears to be associated with the complex character of this organ; the animal ruminates in the erect posture, but the act does not take place with the same regularity and frequency as in the placental Ruminantia.

The young of the common Kangaroo, when born, is little more than an inch in length, including the tail, perfectly naked, and somewhat resembling in its colour and semi-transparency an earthworm. The hind-limbs are considerably shorter than the fore ones, the divisions of the toes, however, being distinct. When first presented to the nipple of the parent, its muscular powers are not sufficient to enable it to derive sustenance therefrom. There is, therefore, a peculiar muscle attached to the teat, which by its contraction, produces an injection of the milk into the mouth of the helpless young. But this provision of creative wisdom and care is not the only one that meets us here. Professor Owen has observed that the act of swallowing can scarcely be supposed to take place invariably at the same instant with the maternal action producing the flow of milk; yet, if at any time this should not be the case, the consequences might be fatal, from the reception of the fluid into the windpipe. To obviate this danger there is a special contrivance; the air-passage being continued in the form of a cone, which projects into the palate, and communicates with the nostrils, while it is completely shut up from the mouth; as it is in the Cetacea. Thus the injected milk passes down in a divided