242 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on a new Quadruped. 



the table, afford practice and amusement to the sportsman ; 

 but these minute Mammalia are despised even by the native, 

 who moreover, from his custom of suspending all chase of 

 game after dark, is little likely ever to fall in with them. 



J. Stuart, Esq., is a surgeon in the army, who has been 

 frequently employed by the Colonial Government in super- 

 intending the quarantine to which vessels arriving unhealthy 

 in Port Jackson are subjected. On entering between the 

 heads of this noble firth, every vessel is boarded by the 

 medical officers, and if found in a sickly state, instead of sail- 

 ing up to Sydney, a distance of about seven miles, she is 

 carried off to the right, and enters Spring Cove, where the 

 passengers are landed at a Lazaretto, established on the 

 north shore. Here they remain under the care of a surgeon 

 for the necessary period ; and Mr. Stuart, who has often un- 

 dertaken this painful charge, has, by means of his admirable 

 skill in drawing objects of natural history, and his powers of 

 accurate observation, been enabled to employ to the advan- 

 tage of every department of science those spare hours, which 

 otherwise, in the midst of contagion and disease, would have 

 proved so dreary. 



From among several great novelties which I have found in 

 his collection of drawings, I have selected the representation 

 (natural size) here given, PL VII., of a quadruped which I shall 

 call Antechinus Stuartii, and of which Mr. Stuart killed one 

 male specimen at Spring Cove in August 1837. As this 

 specimen has been unfortunately lost, and I have never seen 

 it, I am obliged to describe it from his notes, hoping that the 

 attention of naturalists will be drawn to the animal, and that 

 some further knowledge may soon be acquired with respect 

 to the habits and structure of the species. 



Genus Antechinus. 

 Dentes incisores g-; canini^-j ; pseudomolares |^ ; molares ~ = 44. 



Caput elongatum, rhinario valde producto. Aures grandes ad apicem 

 angustiores obtusse. Oculi raediocres prominuli. Corpus pyri- 

 forme antice angustius. Cauda teres pilosa gracilis. Pedes 

 digitis liberis plantigradi ; antice pentadactyli ; digitis tribus 

 intermediis longioribus ; postice pentadactyli digitis secundo 

 et tertio longioribus, pollice brevi, unguibus brevibus acutis. 



Antechinus Stuartii. 

 Antechinus fulvus abdomine artubusque subtiis albescentibus, cauda 



fere corporis longitudinem sequante. 

 Long. tot. usque ad apicem cauda? 9^ unc. 



This genus appears, in its system of dentition, to approach 

 Phascogale, but it differs from that and all other carnivorous 

 Marsupials in the formula of the incisors ; for those carnivo- 



