and Fish from Van Diemen's Land. 103 



myself, having lost some entire species of bulbs through these 

 animals. 



4. Phascolomys, Wombat. — Commonly called in the colony 

 by the name of badger. I found this animal in very various 

 situations, on the tops of mountains and in dense forests. In 

 the mountains it finds holes among the rocks in which it can 

 lodge, but in other places it burrows in the earth. It is usually 

 nocturnal I believe, but I have frequently killed them in the 

 day time; their pace is slow, and on being attacked they 

 grunt somewhat like a pig. The skin is excessively thick, and 

 curiously attached to the bones of the hips, as also slightly along 

 the vertebrae of the back. At the hips however you have to 

 cut through solid gristle. The whole skin has to be cut off, as 

 it will not separate from the flesh like the skins of most other 

 animals. The eyes are unusually small, iris dark brown. I 

 obtained a very large one recently at the Hampshire Hills ; but 

 the man to whom I gave the skin to immerse in a decoction 

 of bark, put it in the warm liquor, thereby destroying its 

 value : to such losses a person is always subject. It measured 

 thirty-six inches from snout to tail, and thirty-four inches in 

 circumference round the body. Wombat flesh is very good 

 to eat, and I have upon many occasions made hearty meals of 

 it when out in the woods. The aborigines were also fond of 

 it. The molares are remarkable, and by extracting one you 

 will see how curiously they go into the lower jaw ; at least they 

 appear so to me, being semicircular and long. 



I saw one or two specimens of an animal brought from the 

 south coast of New Holland bearing a general resemblance to 

 the wombat, in being tailless, (the Koala, Phascolarctos cine- 

 reus ?) but I think the toes differed in some points, and it lived 

 on the tops of the trees like the opossums. Its cry at night* 

 I was informed by the gentleman who shot it, was not unlike 

 some of the early notes in the braying of an ass. 



4*. Dasyurus ursinus, the Devil. — I have only been able to 

 procure a young specimen of this species. It exists all over 

 Van Diemen's Land, and naturalists are wrong in supposing 

 that because it, the Thylacinus, and some others are found 

 on the sea coast, that they exist there only. The sea coast is 

 certainly the part most likely to be visited by voyagers, but 



