180 MAMMALS

nian wolf, having large canine teeth and small and
numerous incisors ; the second, Dzprotodontza, such as
the kangaroo, having small canines and large and few
incisors, and generally having three incisors in the
upper jaw and one only in the lower ; but there is one
family, the bandicoots, which is intermediate in its
characteristics.

There are two American genera, one Chzronectes,
being represented by the yapock, a curious aquatic
carnivore about as big as a rat and having webbed
feet, living in the rivers of Guatemala and Brazil ;
the other, Dzde/phys, containing over twenty species
of opossums, ranging all the way from Virginia to
Patagonia. Opossums have fifty teeth, eighteen of
which are incisors, ten of them being in the upper
jaw. Another common characteristic is the long
prehensile, and to a certain extent scaly, tail. The
‘pouch’ is not often complete, and in most cases is
absent altogether. The opossums that have no
pouches carry their young on their back, the little
ones hanging on by their tails to their mother’s tail.
One species has itshome among swamps and livesupon
the crabs it catches. In the past there were opos-
sums in England and France. To the Dasyuride
belong the Tasmanian wolf, which looks like a
striped dog, and is now nearly extinct, and the
dasyures, which are also carnivorous, though more
like cats. To this family also belong the marsupial
mice, or phascogales, and Myrmecobius fasciatus, the
marsupial ant-eater, which has more teeth than any
other animal of its class and is one of the few
mammals marked with cross bars, Among the