The marsupial animals bring forth their young before they are fully developed. The mother places the mouth, of what is little more than a foetus, to her teat; and there it remains till it is able to go alone. The pouch covers the teats, and serves to protect the young, while the process of development is going on. Even after the little ones are able to run about, they continue to use this singular nest as a place of repose, and a refuge in case of attack by an enemy! The pouched animals are not entirely confined to the Australian island. The large island of New Guinea possesses some of them; and there are species in Java, and others of the Asiatic islands. America (both North and South) has the opossums, in numerous species; but it is in Australia, and the contiguous islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Guinea, that we find both the genera and species in greatest numbers. These countries are, in fact, the head-quarters of the marsupial animals. The true genera are not numerous, though the species of most of them are; and it is but natural to suppose that many new ones--both genera and species--will yet be discovered, when the vast _terra incognita_ of Australia comes to be explored. In fact, every expedition into the interior brings home with it some new animal that carries a pouch! As the opossums were the first of these animals whose habits became generally known to Europeans, we shall speak first of them; and it may be remarked, that although there are several species in the Australian countries resembling the true opossums, and are even called opossums, yet among naturalists the name is usually limited to the pouched animals of America. The old writer, Lawson, gives as succinct an account of the habits of the best known species--the Virginia opossum--as may be found anywhere. We shall adopt it _verbatim_:--"The possum," says he, "is found nowhere but in America. She is the wonder of all the land animals--being of the size of a badger, and near that colour. The female, doubtless, breeds her young at her teats, for I have seen them stuck fast thereto when they have been no bigger than a small raspberry, and seemingly inanimate. She has a paunch, or false belly, wherein she carries her young, after they are from those teats, till they can shift for themselves.