NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 157 



noted, and now a Native Bear is a great rarity, in fact not a 

 dozen had been seen during the last ten years. However, during 

 the last few months several had been reported, and it may be 

 that they were again on the increase. Mr. White adds : — "1 am 

 absolutely certain that, in this locality, a patch of well-timbered 

 country, 30 by 15 miles in extent, these marsupials were not 

 ilestroyed by any human agency, the number shut being very 

 small indeed. I am quite satisfied that a disease of some sort 

 practically exterminated the Native Bear in the Upper Hunter 

 district. About 1895, the animals were dying oif in hundreds, 

 the poor brutes being noted on the ground, with their heads 

 greatly swollen, and too weak to climb the trees. Their e3'es 

 were protruding ; and numbers of skulls picked up later on, 

 showed similar bony growths to that on the specimen exhibited. 

 In 1896, I frequently visited a station in South-east Queensland; 

 Native Bears were exceedingly plentiful in the locality, but 

 disappeared in the course of a few years, and certainly not by 

 .shooting. During 1881-3, I was surveying on the South Coast, 

 from Bega to the Victorian border, and noted the bears in 

 hundreds, I understand that they disappeared in a mysterious 

 manner, and not by shooting. In my opinion, it is not a fact 

 that Native Bears were shot out, but that this fatal disease broke 

 out amongst them when they became so numerous. The disease 

 did not appear to affect the other marsupials. About 1896, the 

 Opossums {Trichosur^is vulpecula) commenced to die in large 

 numbers, but there was no sign of swelled head, and the intes- 

 tines were full of worms; the mortality did not last long, nor was 

 it general, as in the case of the Native Bear. No disease of any 

 sort has been noticed amongst the Kangaroos or Wallabies, but 

 the Native Cat {Dasyurus viverrinus) has, like the Native Bear, 

 practically disappeared, and during the same period of time." 



Dr. T. Harvey Johnston exhibited a small series of Entozoa from 

 New South Wales, comprising (1) Cysticercvs tenuicollis Rud., 

 from the mesentery of a goat (Illawarra district); {1) Oxyuris 

 amhigua Rud., from the intesthie of a rabbit (Braidwood, Cowra); 

 (3) Linguatula serrata Frol., from the nasal cavities of dogs, 



