"One of the sheep-owners told me that in the course of eighteen months he had killed 64,000 of these animals (marsupials), especially wallabies (<i>Macropus dorsalis</i>) and kangaroo- rats (<i>Lagorchestes conspicillatus</i>), and also many thousands of the larger kangaroo (<i>Macropus giganteus</i>)."
1893. `Sydney Morning Herald,' Aug. 5, p. 9, col. 1:
"In South Australia the Legislature has had to appoint a close season for kangaroos, else would extinction of the larger marsupials be at hand. We should have been forced to such action also, if the American market for kangaroo-hides had continued as brisk as formerly."
1894. R. Lydekker, `Marsupialia,' p. 1:
"The great island-continent of Australia, together with the South-eastern Austro-Malayan islands, is especially characterized by being the home of the great majority of that group of lowly mammals commonly designated marsupials, or pouched-mammals. Indeed, with the exception of the still more remarkable monotremes [q.v.], or egg-laying mammals, nearly the whole of the mammalian fauna of Australia consists of these marsupials, the only other indigenous mammals being certain rodents and bats, together with the native dog, or dingo, which may or may not have been introduced by man."
1896. F. G. Aflalo, `Natural History of Australia,' p. 30:
"The presence of a predominating marsupial order in Australia has, besides practically establishing the long isolation of that continent from the rest of the globe, also given rise to a number of ingenious theories professing to account for its survival to this last stronghold."
<hw>Marsupial Mole</hw>, <i>n</i>. the only species of the genus <i>Notoryctes</i> (q.v.), <i>N. typhlops</i> [from the Greek <i>notos</i>, `south' (literally `south wind'), and rhunchos, a `snout']; first described by Dr. Stirling of Adelaide (in the `Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia,' 1891, p. 154). Aboriginal name, <i>Urquamata</i>. It burrows with such extraordinary rapidity in the desert-sands of Central Australia, to which it is confined, that, according to Mr. Lydekker, it may be said to swim in the sand as a porpoise does in the water.
<hw>Marsupial Wolf</hw>, <i>n</i>. See <i>Thylacine</i> and <i>Tasmanian Tiger</i>.
<hw>Martin, <i</hw>>n</i>. a bird common in England. The species in Australia are—