Note 54 — Chapter IX · OF NATIONAL NOSES.

Zoologists class the Marsupiala as the very lowest form of Mammalia, and but little removed above the cold-blooded Reptilia. They are a connecting link between those two great classes of Vertebrata. The Ornithorynchus is an animal of still lower organization. The whole fauna and flora of Australia indicate a newly-formed land, and are analogous to those of the Poilitic and New Red Sandstone ages of the Northern Hemisphere; which in like manner succeeded Coralline Limestones, and in which small islands began to be united into large islands and quasi-continents.