Dr Knox on the Wombat of Flinders. 105 



the French ships of discovery, which circumnavigated the world 

 during the reign of the late Emperor. Of two or more speci- 

 mens, one was landed alive, so that M. St Hilaire had an op- 

 portunity of observing some of the habits of this very curious 

 class of animals. His memoirs on the natural liistory of the 

 Phascolome will be found in an early number of the Annales de 

 Museum ; the anatomical descriptions were drawn up by Baron 

 Cuvier, and have been long submitted to the pubhc in the 

 " Anatomie Comparee.'''' 



The Regne Animale of Baron Cuvier notices certain other 

 marsupial animals, somewhat resembling the Phascolome of St 

 Hilaire, yet sufficiently different to constitute distinct genera : 

 these are, the Koala, the Phalanger, and the Perameles. Of these, 

 the first, or Koala, seems to have been established by naturalists 

 without sufficient authority. It resembles, it is true, very close- 

 ly the animal I am about to describe, under the name of the 

 Wombat of Flinders ; but we shall afterwards find, that, if the 

 character given in the Regne Animale be correct, they cannot 

 be considered as belonging to the same species. 



But previous to the arrival of Peron and his associates in 

 Europe, and consequently to the description and dissection of 

 M. St Hilaire and the Baron Cuvier, Mr Bass, a British sur- 

 geon, companion of the great but unfortunate Flinders, had 

 discovered and described, under the name of Wombat, an ani- 

 mal of Australia, differing essentially from the Phascolome, 

 and even in certain respects from the Koala, so as evidently to 

 constitute a distinct species. A certain degree of vagueness, 

 however, in the observations of Captain Flinders and of Mr 

 Bass (who at the time were deeply interested in more important 

 discoveries), led Baron Cuvier to suppose that there might exist 

 some error, — some erroneous combination of two different de- 

 scriptions ; and, consequently, that the Wombat described by 

 Captain Fhnders might not have a real and distinct existence ; 

 but, should this not be the case, he observes, the animal de- 

 scribed by Bass and Flinders would form a subgenus apart, and 

 ought to be arranged with or near the Perameles. 



lUiger, whose acuteness in the classification of objects apper- 

 taining to natural history was avowedly great, suspected this 



