GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2 -- -- | | | | | {253}The Wombats are tail-less, terrestrial, burrowing animals, about the size of a badger, but feeding on roots and grass. They inhabit South Australia and Tasmania (Plate XI. vol. i. p. 439). An extinct wombat, as large as a tapir, has been found in the Australian Pliocene deposits. _General Remarks on the Distribution of Marsupialia._ We have here the most remarkable case, of an extensive and highly varied order being confined to one very limited area on the earth's surface, the only exception being the opossums in America. It has been already shown that these are comparatively recent immigrants, which have survived in that country long after they disappeared in Europe. As, however, no other form but that of the Didelphyidæ occurs there during the Tertiary period, we must suppose that it was at a far more remote epoch that the ancestral forms of all the other Marsupials entered Australia; and the curious little mammals of the Oolite and Trias, offer valuable indications as to the time when this really took place. A notice of these extinct marsupials of the secondary period will be found at vol. i. p. 159. _Order XIII.--MONOTREMATA._ FAMILY 83.--ORNITHORHYNCHIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.) GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2 -- -- | | | | | The _Ornithorhynchus_, or duck-billed Platypus, one of the most remarkable and isolated of existing mammalia, is found in East and South Australia, and Tasmania. {254}FAMILY 84.--ECHIDNIDÆ. (1 Genus, 2 Species.)