Other members of the same great family are far from harmless: among them are the _dasyures_, or native cats, with dark bodies mostly spotted with white. Some smaller members of this family are called weasels and mice. To this family belongs also the Tasmanian Devil, whose portrait we have here; he is very fierce 14 though small. A larger animal, the size of a retriever, is the so-called Tasmanian wolf; he is carnivorous, while most of the 15 marsupials are vegetarian. It is rather doubtful whether he should be classed with the rest or go by himself. The only existing allies of the marsupials of Australia are to be found in the opossums and some other less known animals of South America; but the opossum of South America resembles less his Australian namesake than the other group, the _dasyures_. In Europe and Asia the marsupials existed, but only in very remote geological ages, as their remains prove. It has been argued from the existence of the opossum family in America that at some time there must have been a land connexion between Australia and South America, either by way of the islands of the Pacific or by an Antarctic continent. But the isolation of Australia must have been very ancient, since it has given time for the development of the enormous differences which we have seen among the individuals of the same family. Even these strange animals, old as they are, are not the most primitive to be found in Australia. The _ornithorhynchus_ or duck-billed platypus lives in a burrow by the river; it has teeth 16 when young, but seems to lose these as it grows up. It is said to lay eggs like a reptile, though it is a true mammal. We are not surprised to learn that when the first stuffed specimen of this strange beast reached Europe it was thought to be a fraud, put together to deceive the ignorant and unwary. Another of these egg-laying animals is the _echidna_, or spiny ant-eater, which has a kind of beak for burrowing and a long sticky tongue to capture its prey. It has sharp spines and rolls itself into a ball like a hedgehog when attacked. In addition to these curious animals there are rats and mice and the dingo, or native dog, of 17 a type more familiar to us. It is thought possible by some that the dingo, being so different from the other native animals, was introduced by man at some very early date.