. Principles of economic zoo?logy. Zoology, Economic. MAMMALIA 321 is reduced. The corpus callosum, if present, is rudimenatry. Parameles possess a true allantoic placenta. Many thousand skins of the opossums are used yearly. The hair is used in making hats and felt. The fur and leather of the kangaroo are also used. The opossum family (Didel'phidoe) consists of pendactylous, plantigrade marsupials. The pouch is present or absent according to the species. The great toe is large and separable from the others, making the foot prehensile. The tail is long, prehensile, and usually covered by a sca
. Principles of economic zoo?logy. Zoology, Economic. MAMMALIA 321 is reduced. The corpus callosum, if present, is rudimenatry. Parameles possess a true allantoic placenta. Many thousand skins of the opossums are used yearly. The hair is used in making hats and felt. The fur and leather of the kangaroo are also used. The opossum family (Didel'phidoe) consists of pendactylous, plantigrade marsupials. The pouch is present or absent according to the species. The great toe is large and separable from the others, making the foot prehensile. The tail is long, prehensile, and usually covered by a scalj' skin and a few- scattered hairs. There are two distinct genera. The first has been divided into several by some Fig. 263.—The female of Didel'phys dorsig'cra, one of the South American opossums, carrying its young upon its back. (After Nicholson.) Genus Didelphys comprises twenty-three species, most of which are tropical, being found in Mexico, Central America, and Brazil, but never in Australia. It is represented in the United States by the common opossum {Didel'phus Virginia'na). Its habit of feigning death or "playing 'possum " when confronted by an enemy is well known. It is about the size of a large cat. Its nose is pointed, its eyes and ears large. It is arboreal and nocturnal. It eats anything from insects to small reptiles and birds, and also devours muskmelons and certain mushrooms; indeed, it is almost omnivorous. It does not hibernate. Its young are about J inch in length and are carried in the pouch for about eight weeks. After this, in some species, they are carried on the back (Fig. 263), their tails interlocking with that of the mother. Tasmanian marsupials (family Dasyur'idoe) are distinguished from the American opossum by fewer incisor teeth, a rudimentary first digit on the fore and hind feet, by the absence of a cecum, and by a non-prehensile tail. 21. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have
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