Of the old type of Selachians
we have again one lingering representative in our own times to give us
the clue to its ancestors,--as the Gar-Pike explains the old Ganoids,
and the Chambered Nautilus helps us to understand the Chambered Shells
of past times. The so-called Port-Jackson Shark has features which were
very characteristic of the Carboniferous Sharks and are lost in the
modern ones, so that it affords us a sort of link, as it were, and a
measure of comparison, between those now living and the more ancient
forms. It is an interesting fact that this only living representative of
the Carboniferous Shark should be found in New Holland, because it is
there, in that isolated continent, left apart, as it would seem, for a
special purpose, that we find reproduced for us most fully the character
of the Animal Kingdom in earlier creations.
[Illustration]
The first Mammalia in the world were pouched animals, having that
extraordinary attachment to the mother after birth which characterizes
the Kangaroo. In New Holland almost all the Mammalia are pouched, and
have also the imperfect organization of the brain, as compared with the
other Mammalia, which accompanies that peculiar structural feature; and
although the American Opossum makes an exception to the rule, it is
nevertheless true that this type of the Animal Kingdom is now confined
almost exclusively to New Holland.
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