C4 ) 



Dimensions of tlie type, an lulnlt mule in spirit : — 



Head and IkkIv 7(i mm.; tail 81: liiiidfoot 10; car 22-5. 



Sknll : basal length 24 ; greatest breadth loS ; interorbital breadth .rl ; 

 palate, length 13-2 ; combined lengths of ms'~' 4-T. 



JIab. Station Point, Charlotte Waters, Interior of Sonth Australia. 



This striking little si)ecies comes from very much the same locality whence 

 several small marsupials have been obtained and described by Professor Baldwin 

 Spencer, to whom the British Museum is indebted for a valnable series of the 

 species described by him. None of these, nor so far as I know any other described 

 form, has the remarkable foot-structnre of .§. hirtipen, a structure so strikingly 

 like that found in tlie similarly desert-haunting Gerbilles of the restricted subgenus 

 Gerbillui. 



NOTE ON SOME KANGAROO HYBEIDS. 



By the HON. WALTER ROTHSCHILD. 



HAVING succeeded well in acclimatising tlie " Great Kangaroo," Macropus 

 (/ignntcus, and " Bennett's Wallaby," Macropus beinietti, in a state of 

 freedom at Tring, I began in 1802 and 1893 to try the same experiment with other 

 species, and I have had at different times Black Wallaby, Bridled, Striped, and 

 Sliort-tailed Wallaby, Dcrbian Wallaby, Black Wallaroo, Parry's Wallaroo, and 

 lastly Reil Kangaroos (^Macropus ualabat/ta, ('hn/clioqah; freiiatits, Macropus 

 dorsalis, M. brachjurus, M. </erbi/an/(s, M. robustus, M. parri/i, and M. rufus). 

 None of these, however, would live well in a free state, and of all of them I only 

 had in 1895 one female Red Kangaroo, Macropus rufus, left at liberty. This 

 animal paired with a male " Boomer " (Macropus gigantcus), and jiroduced, at the 

 beginning of 1897, a female hybrid which, strange to say, was e.xactly like the 

 mother and showed no trace of the father. At the time, knowing the many freaks 

 which appear in hybrids, I took little notice of this creature, but this year {i.e. end 

 of 1897) the same female Bed Kangaroo ])rodnced a male hybrid from a " Boomer" 

 which is of the most brilliant red colour, much brighter than any pure-bred Bed 

 Kangaroo I have seen, and also shows no trace of the male jiareut in its appearance. 

 It seems therefore that in this case the female has more influence on the jirogeny 

 than the male. 



