Mammary Synonyms

Marsupials may be defined as viviparous (that is non-egglaying) mammals, in which the young are born in an imperfect condition, and almost immediately attached to the teats of the mammary glands; the latter being generally enclosed in a pouch, and the front edge of the pelvis being always furnished with epipubic or "marsupial" bones.

Examples of physiological hypertrophy are found in the ovaries, uterus and mammary glands, where there is an increased functional activity required at the period of gestation.

Their abdominal bones are like those of the marsupials; and they are furnished with pouches for their young, but have no teats, the milk being distilled into their pouches from the mammary glands.

During the early period of their sojourn in the pouch, the blind, naked, helpless young creatures (which in the great kangaroo scarcely exceed an inch in length) are attached by their mouths to the nipple of the mother, and are fed by milk injected into their stomach by the contraction of the muscle covering the mammary gland.

In a younger stage of their development, however, the young are carried in a temporary abdominal pouch, to which they are transferred after hatching, and into which open the mammary glands.