Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/216

204 MARSUPIALS South America; those species in Australia nearly allied and with similar habits do not appear to be associated in the same limited district. The skull in marsupials presents the reptilian character of permanent separation of the bones, even in old animals; the palate is very imperfect, and the angle of the jaw bent inward; the number of teeth is greater than in placental mammals, and that of the incisors is never the same in each jaw; clavicles are present in most of the species; the marsupial bones, existing in both sexes, are considered by Owen as trochlear or sesamoid bones, de- veloped in the tendon of the external oblique muscle of the abdomen as the knee-pan is in the tendon of the rectus of the thigh, the cremaster muscle winding around them in the male and the compressors of the mammary gland in the female ; in many genera, like the opossums, the tibia and fibula are so loosely connected with each other and with the tarsus that the foot has a movement of rotation upon the leg, the inner toe acting as an opposable thumb. The brain, relatively to the body, is smaller in marsupials than in any other mam- mals, varying between 1 to 520 and 1 to 800 ; its structure is more simple, and its surface without convolutions or corpus callosum, and the intelligence corresponds to this inferiority of cerebral development. The organs of smell, hearing, and other senses are well developed ; the eyes are generally large and prominent, as most of them are nocturnal in their habits. There are three modifications of the stomach, it being simple in the opossums and phalangers, with a glandular apparatus in the koala and wombat, or sacculated in the kangaroos (in the latter resembling in structure the human co- lon) ; these modifications do not appear to be related to the character of the food; in the genera with a simple stomach the caecum is much developed, being sometimes three or four times as long as the animal, while it is very small in those with sacculated complex stom- achs, showing the vicarious functions of these two portions of the alimentary canal; in the flesh-eating marsupials the intestine is sus- pended on a simple and continuous mesentery, as in carnivorous reptiles. The liver is divided into many lobes, and is always provided with a gall bladder; the pancreas and spleen are triangular or T-shaped ; in the heart there is not the usuul trace of the foetal communication between the auricles, on account of the early pi-riod at which the incompletely developed young begin to respire air. The lungs are constructed on the usual mammalian type, the only tendency to the oviparous structure being the entireness of the rings of the trachea in some of the phalangers; the kidneys present in "tiling unusual; the membranous portion of the urethra is longer and wider than in other iM.miiiKils; the teaicula seminales are absent, and the glans sometimes double, with a cor- responding duplication in the female organs; in these ovo-viviparous or implacental mam- MARSYAS mals the vascular layer of the allantois is not developed so as to organize the villi of the chorion or to form cotyledons or a placenta. For details on the anatomy, mode of develop- ment, and natural history of marsupials, the reader is referred to the article "Marsupialia," by Owen, in vol. iii. of the "Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology," and to vol. i. of the " Natural History of Mammalia," by G. R. Waterhouse (London, 1846). Prof. Owen re- gards the koala as the most typical of the marsupials, having the greatest number of the modifications peculiar to the order, and the smallest number of those common to other groups of mammals. His classification of the order is into : 1, sarcophaga (flesh eaters), like dasyurus; 2, entomophaga (insect eaters), like the opossums; 3, carpophaga (fruit eaters), like the phalangers ; 4, poepkaga (plant eaters), like the kangaroos; and 5, rhizophaga (root eaters), like the wombat. The first traces of mammals on the globe are the fossil remains of marsupials in the Stonesfield oolite and the gypsum (eocene) of Paris, so that at those epochs Europe was inhabited by animals of a type now confined to Australia and America ; similar fossils have been found in the caverns of "Wellington valley, New South Wales, and in the calcareous caverns of Brazil by Dr. Lund, very nearly allied to species now living in those countries. MARSUS, Dornitius, a Roman poet of the Au- gustan age, of whose life there are no particu- lars; but he survived Tibullus, who died in 18 B. C. He is frequently mentioned by Martial, who praises his epigrams, which are remark- able for their licentiousness ; and he also wrote epic poetry, erotic elegies, and a collection of fables. His fragments are inserted in Weichert's Poetarum Latinorum Reliquioe, (Leipsic, 1830). MARSYAS, in Greek mythology, according to different traditions, a satyr or a peasant of Phrygia, son of Hyagnis, (Eagrus, or Olympus. A flute, which Minerva had thrown away in disgust at seeing the distortion of her features, as she played it, reflected in the water, was picked up by Marsyas. The breath of the goddess, having once filled it, caused it still to emit the most beautiful strains whenever he blew through it. He challenged Apollo to a musical contest, and played the flute while Apollo played the lyre, the latter triumphed only by adding his voice to the music of his in- strument. The condition was that the victor should do what he pleased with the vanquished, and Marsyas was bound to a tree and flayed alive. His blood was the source of the river Marsyas in Phrygia, an affluent of the Maean- der; and his flute or flutes (for, according tc some, he played on the double flute), being borne down this river, were thrown on shore near Sicyon, and there dedicated to Apollo in his temple. The legend is supposed to have reference to the contest between the citha- rcedic and auloedic styles of music. Marsyas is made by some the inventor of the flute.