. Biology in America. Biology. 138 Biology in America ourselves "up a stump," is to accept the philosophy of Topsy and admit that they "jest ; Tlie ]\Iesozoic and early Eocene mammals were all primi- tive types and most of them disappeared from the face of the earth without leaving any descendants. "It is the mammals which were the strangest element of Paleoccne life, and (an) imaginary observer would find no creature tliat he had ever seen before. The difference from modern mammalian life was not merely one of species, genera or even families, but of orders, for
. Biology in America. Biology. 138 Biology in America ourselves "up a stump," is to accept the philosophy of Topsy and admit that they "jest ; Tlie ]\Iesozoic and early Eocene mammals were all primi- tive types and most of them disappeared from the face of the earth without leaving any descendants. "It is the mammals which were the strangest element of Paleoccne life, and (an) imaginary observer would find no creature tliat he had ever seen before. The difference from modern mammalian life was not merely one of species, genera or even families, but of orders, for only one, or at most two,. The Opossum The only marsupial at j)reseiit found in the United States. Photo hij Elu-iih /'. Sa)iJ)orn. By permission of the Neic York Zoological Society. of the orders now living were then to be found in North America, and both of these (marsupials and insectivores) were primitive and archaic groups, which seem like belated sur- vivals in the modern ; ^ It is possible however that the marsupial types of these early mammals have come down to us as the marsupials of the present. The marsupials derive their name from the marsupium or pouch in which they carry the young for some time after birth. These latter are born in a very undevel- oped condition and at birth are transferred by the mother 'Scott, "History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere," p. 284. By permission of the Macmillan Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Young, R. T. (Robert Thompson), b. 1874. Boston, R. G. Badger
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