The countries of the world : being a popular description of the various continents, islands, rivers, seas, and peoples of the globe

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Identifier: countriesofworld04brow (find matches)
Title: The countries of the world : being a popular description of the various continents, islands, rivers, seas, and peoples of the globe
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Brown, Robert, 1842-1895
Subjects:
Publisher: London New York : Cassell, Petter, Galpin & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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the orchids,epacrids, hemlock order, the BiosmcEc, a subdivision of the rues, the Liliacese, the Labiatas,or dead-nettle family, the Goodenia>, the Figworts, and the Salsolaceai. The buttercuporder, the epacrids, and the Rosaeeae are not found north of the equator. The animals of Australia are quite as peculiar as the plants. Few of them are foundelsewhere, while some of the leading groups of the continent and neighbouring islands areentirely wanting. For instance, there are no monkeys, ruminants (chewers of the cud), orpachyderms (pig and elephant order), and the great group of carnivorous animals is repre- AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS. 165 sented solely by the dog-lookinw dingo, whose taste for lambs makes it lead a harried lifeat the hands of the farmer. The only other carnivora are the seals; but there are manybats, one of which is also found in Madagascar. There are four edentate animals, belongingto the sub-order monotremata, all peculiar to Australia. They are tlie curious echidna, or
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THE GIANT orM-TREE OF VICTOKIA (Eucalyptus amygdalina spiny ant-eater, and the ornithorhynchus, or duck-billed platypus (p. 161), long known asamong the most peculiar of Australian animals, but whose full history is still a mystery.Among the rodents, the curious water-rat (II//ih-om//.s) unites the characteristics of thebeaver-rat and dormouse. There are also several species of mouse, a jerboa, and thehalf rat, half rabbit (Coniliirus constructor). But the marsupials form the most markedfeature in Australian zoology. This (the kangaroo and opossum) order numbers about 138 :* * Some authors have reduced this number to 110. 166 TIIE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. iiiJecJ, Australia lias four-fiftlis of all the known species of tliis order. Of the remainingthirty-two not found iu Australia, nine are found in New Guinea and adjoining islands,and twenty-three comprise the opossums. Their great peculiarity is that — to speak non-scientificallv—they carry their young in a pouch, a fold of skin

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