There are several different kinds of these animals, but they all agree in having grayish or grayish-brown fur, with a number of white spots on the sides of the body.
Pouched Mice
Very pretty and graceful little creatures are these. There are a good many different kinds of them. They are all small, the largest of them being no bigger than a half-grown rat, while some of them are not equal in size even to an ordinary mouse. And as they breed very freely, and have quite a number of little ones at every birth, they are among the most plentiful of all the Australian mammals.
Pouched mice always spend much of their time in the trees, where they seem quite as contented as they do on the ground. They run up and down the trunk with the greatest activity, scamper along the branches, leap from one bough to another, and never seem to miss their footing. And they are continually poking their sharp little muzzles into the cracks and crevices of the bark in order to search for tiny insects and spiders. Their habits are not very much like those of mice, and one cannot help thinking that they ought to be called pouched shrews.
The Myrmecobius, or Banded Ant-eater
This marsupial ant-eater is found in Southern and Western Australia. It is a prettily marked little animal of about the same size as a squirrel, with a pointed snout, a long slender body, and a rather long and bushy tail. In color it is dark chestnut brown above and white below, while a number of white stripes run across the hinder part of the back and loins, beginning just behind the shoulders, and ending a little above the root of the tail.
The myrmecobius lives principally on the ground. But it is a very good climber nevertheless, and can ascend trees and run about on the branches with considerable activity. It feeds on ants and termites, catching them by means of its long and worm-like tongue, which is so sticky that the insects adhere to it as soon as they are touched. The marsupial pouch is almost entirely wanting, so that one might almost be led to suppose that the animal must be a true ant-eater. But then the ant-eaters have no teeth at all, while the myrmecobius has no less than fifty-two, or more than any other mammal with the exception of one or two members of the whale tribe and the armadillo.
This curious and pretty little animal is very gentle in disposition, and never seems to bite or scratch even if it is taken prisoner. It makes its home either in the decaying trunk of a fallen tree, or else in a hole in the ground.
The Pouched Mole
This, one of the most curious of all the marsupial animals, was quite unknown until a recent time. In size and shape it is very much like the common mole, and it has its fore paws armed with enormous claws for digging in just the same manner. In color it is pale yellow. It has no outward ears, and its eyes are so tiny, and so deeply buried in the skin, that it must be almost, if not quite, unable to see with them. And in front of its snout is an odd kind of shield made of thick, horny skin, which is evidently intended to protect the face as the animal forces its way through the ground.