CONILURUS. 115 



vide p. 4). " While life remained in the mother," he continues, 

 " they remained attached to her teats by their mouths, and 

 grasped her body with their claws, thereby causing her to present 

 the appearance of a Marsupial minus the pouch. On pulling the 

 young from the teats of the dead mother, they seized hold of my 

 glove with the mouth, and held on so strongly that it was diffi- 

 cult to disengage them." 



Should the above account be correct, and with an observer 

 whose veracity and accuracy are unquestionable, there can be no 

 reason for doubting the statement, and should the same habit 

 be common to all, or even some, members of the genus, I have 

 failed to elicit any further information on the subject, either 

 confirmatory or rebutting, from experienced zoologists and col- 

 lectors it raises the question whether Conilurus, a genus purely 

 belonging to, and even in a fossil state so far confined to, con- 

 tinental Australia, may not originally have been a marsupial 

 Rodent, which is even now in a transition stage between the 

 Metatherian and Eutherian types. The fact of Thomas' Mus 

 argurus having such close affinities (vide p. 110) to both genera, 

 that even that talented writer is unable to say for certain to 

 which genus this South Australian mammal belongs, would seem 

 to strengthen the position here put forward. The discovery also 

 by Dr. Stirling of the so-called " Marsupial Mole " (Notoryctes), 

 a form, which some of the foremost scientists of the age consider 

 to be closely allied to the South African Golden Mole (Chryso- 

 chloris), and in which the pouch is aborted or at the least 

 rudimentary, again points to a gradual supersession of the older 

 marsupial forms, and their immergence with the more recent and 

 more highly developed monodelphian type. 



2. CONILURUS MACRURUS, Peters, sp. (1876). 

 Peters' Jerboa-Rat. 



Ears large and rounded ; tail much longer than the head and 

 body ; fur soft. General color above reddish-brown, intermixed 

 with scattered longer black hairs ; below white ; ears rust-colored ; 

 feet clothed with short white hairs : proximal fourth of the tail 

 brown, clothed with short scattered bristles ; the rest densely 

 covered with gradually lengthening white hairs, which at the tip 

 exceed an inch in length. 



Dimensions. Head and body to eight and a quarter inches; 

 tail to twelve and a half inches. 



Habitat. North-western Australia. 



Reference. Peters, Mon. Ak. Berl. 1876, p. 355, plate, p. 366. 



