Museum Leverianum, containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, Kt / with descriptions in Latin and English.

  • Shaw, George
Date:
1792
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Museum Leverianum, containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, Kt / with descriptions in Latin and English. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/394 page 25
    ( ^-5 ) were fecurely concealed in a pouch fituated under the body of the female. So wonderful an example of the preferving power of nature was moll juftly admired by the philofophic world; and the different ^ fpecies of Opoffum, (for the genus is of confiderable extent,) were long regarded as the peculiar and exclulive natives of the American Continent. The refearches however of naturalifts in time difeovered that there exifted in other parts of the globe animals of a fimilar ftruflure, and in the ifland of Java in particular, an animal which belongs to this genus was difeovered by Le Brun, the painter, who, tho' not himfelf a fcientific naturalill, could not fail to be flruck by a circumflance of fo much curiofity. He has accordingly deferibed an animal called the Philander, in which he obferved the young peeping out of their temporary refidence in the ventral pouch of their parent. The perfevering efforts of navigators accompanied by naturalifts have at length dicovered as it were another new world, and other animals, not lefs furprifing than the Opolfums; and which feem in many particulars to agree in ftrucfture with thofe animals ; being like them furniilied with an abdominal pouch for the temporary refidence of their young. Of this the two fpecies of Kanguroo are remarkable examples ^ and even the other quadrupeds of New Holland, tho’ very different in the reft of their generic charaders, ftill make fome approach to the genus Didelphis or Opoffum. The particular fpecies of Opoffum reprefented on the plate is the common or large American fpecies, or the Opoffum emphatically fo called; which was the fpecies firft difeovered, and is much larger than the reft of its genus. It is fcarce inferior in fize to a cat, but is of a thicker form. Its colour is a pale yellowifh afli or grayifh, and its fur is fbft and thick, and grows fomewhat ered. The ears are thin, blackifh, round, and edged with a border of white. The tail is very thinly coated with hair; and has [ fomewhat of a fcaly appearance : it is alfo prehenfile, or poffeffed of a power 'Of coiling, like thofe of fome monkeys, round any objed by v/hich the ani- No, I, t
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3