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Bell has given the name to the genus from the shortness of the snout: indeed, the form of the mouth may almost be compared to that of the tortoise: one is led to suppose that this is an adaptation to their herbivorous appetites. It is very interesting thus to find a well-characterized genus, having its marine and terrestrial species, belonging to so confined a portion of the world.
Of the power and diversity of form of these old reptiles we have generally no adequate conception. The forms now living are but feeble remnants. There were huge sea-serpents, and forms like our present crocodiles, but far more powerful. Others apparently resembled in form and habit the herbivorous and carnivorous mammals of to-day. Others strode or leaped on two legs.
A few men can live on plunder, just as there is room in the world for some beasts of prey; other men are reduced to living on industry, just as there are diligent bees, ants, and herbivorous kine. But victory need have no good fruits for the people whose army is victorious. That it sometimes does so is an ulterior and blessed circumstance hardly to be reckoned upon.
Rabies is frequently observed in herbivorous animals, such as the ox, cow, or sheep, but is most commonly found in the carnivore, such as the dog, wolf, fox, jackal, hyena, and cat and other members of the feline tribe. Fox reports several cases of death from symptoms resembling those of hydrophobia in persons who were bitten by skunks.
It was a beautiful, gently rolling country, broken by occasional outcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense forest relieved by open, park-like stretches and broad meadows whereon grazed countless herbivorous animals red deer, aurochs, and infinite variety of antelope and at least three distinct species of horse, the latter ranging in size from a creature about as large as Nobs to a magnificent animal fourteen to sixteen hands high.
But neither is the vegetable food of herbivorous, frugivorous, and graminivorous animals regarded by them, as it is by us, as a material and unconscious satisfaction of their wants; these grasses, grains, and leaves appear to animals to be living powers which it is necessary to conquer, animated subjects endowed with life, but for the most part inoffensive, and which, unlike the living prey of carnivora, offer no resistance.
Half hippopotamus, half seal, yet in no way related to either, something between a pachyderm and cetacean, the dugong is a herbivorous marine mammal, commonly known as "the sea cow," because of its resemblance in some particulars to that useful domesticated animal.
At the epoch of the Trias, therefore, the Marsupialia must have, already existed long enough to have become differentiated into carnivorous and herbivorous forms. But the Monotremata are lower forms than the Didelphia, which last are intercalary between the Ornithodelphia and the Monodelphia.
We know, however, that, before the Recent period, that continent was peopled with large kangaroos, and other herbivorous and carnivorous marsupials, of species long since extinct, their remains having been discovered in ossiferous caverns.
In frisking, flirting, sitting erect, or barking, they resemble the former; while, in feeding and burrowing, they may be classed with the latter. They are exclusively herbivorous, and live upon the fine, short grass that is generally found growing in abundance in the vicinity of their towns, which are always located upon arid, elevated plains, at a great distance from water.
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