Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/438

422 animal, about the size of a badger, with rudimentary tail and peculiar feet and teeth.

We still find the second and third toes bound together, limbs of equal length, and all the five toes of the fore-foot with claws (as in the last family), but the great-toe is represented by a small tubercle, while the cutting teeth are 2/2, growing from persistent pulp through life, as in rats, squirrels, and Guinea-pigs (Fig. 12).



We may now pass to a very different family of animals belonging to the kangaroo's order. We pass, namely, to the Dasyuridæ, or family of the native cat, wolf, and devil, so named from their predatory or fierce nature. They have well-developed eye-teeth (or canines), and back teeth with sharp cutting blades, or bristling with prickly points. The second and third toes are no longer bound together; and while there are five toes with claws to each fore-foot, the great-toe is either absent altogether or small. The cutting teeth. Fig. 13, are 8/6



and the tail is long and clothed with hair throughout. Some of these animals are elegantly colored and marked, and all live on animal food. This form (belonging to the typical genus Dasyurus, which gives its name to the family) may be taken as a type; but two others merit notice.

The first of these is Myrmecobius Fig. 14, from Western Australia, remarkable for its number of back teeth, 8—8/9—9' and for certain geographical and zoölogical relations, to be shortly referred to. With respect to this creature, Mr. Gilbert has told us: