24 PERAGALE. 



2. PERAGALE LAGOTIS, Reid, sp. (1836). 

 Common Rabbit -Bandicoot. 



Size large ; form light and delicate. Fur very long, soft, and 

 silky. General color above fawn-gray ; below white. Cheeks 

 and bases of ears white or pale fawn. Ears nearly naked, their 

 edges and the anterior part of the backs thinly clothed with pale 

 brown hairs. An indistinct darker vertical band on the sides of the 

 rump. Outer sides of the fore and backs of the hind limbs dark 

 gray grizzled with white ; remainder of limbs white. Soles almost 

 entirely thickly hairy. Tail of moderate length, thickly hairy 

 throughout, the basal third colored like the body, the middle third 

 black or dark brown, the terminal third white and prominently 

 crested above. 



Dimensions. Head and body about eighteen inches; tail about 

 nine inches. 



Habitat. South and West Australia. 



References. Thomas, B. M. Catal. p. 223, pi. xxii. fig. 1 (skull); 

 Gould, Mainm. Austr. i. pi. vii. 



Suborder II. Diprotodontia, 



Normal characters. Incisors three in the upper, one in the 

 lower jaw, the latter long and powerful. Canines usually small, 

 much smaller than the incisors, almost invariably absent below. 

 Molars bluntly tuberculate or ridged. 



Frugivorous, graminivorous, phytophagous, herbivorous, rhizo- 

 phagous ; rarely insectivorous and mellivorous. 



Exceptions. One upper incisor only in each ramus in PJiasco- 

 lomys ; second lower incisor present in Phalanger, Trichosurus, 

 Gymnobelideus, Dromicia, Distoschurus, and Acrobates : occa- 

 sionally in Pseudochirus and Petauroides ; second and third in 

 Dactylopsila ; second and occasionally third in Petaurus. 



Family III. PHASCOLOMYID^. 



Wombats. 



Form stout and clumsy. Muzzle short and broad. Limbs 

 subequal, very thick and strong. Fore feet with five subequal 

 digits, each with a stout claw. Hind feet with the hallux short 

 and clawless ; the other toes with long, curved claws; the second 

 and third with a slight tendency to syndactyly. Tail rudimentary. 

 Stomach simple. Coacum present. Pouch present. Mammae 1 



Genus I. PHASCOLOMYS, E. Ceoffroy (1803). 

 Characters as those of the family. 



