THE society's heritage from tiik macleays. 609 



this rat [Proc. Zool. Soc, 1897, p. 857]. By Mr. 0. Thomas, this rat is re- 

 garded as a variety of the Black Rat, Mus rattus [see, an appendix to Waite's 

 paper] . 



I have already referred to the visit of H.M.SS. "Erebus" and "Terror" to 

 Sydney, from 7th July to 5th August, 1841. Dr. J. D. Hooker, Assistant- 

 Surgeon and Botanist, in a letter to his father, says of W. S. Macleay that, 

 "Twice the naturalist came on board the 'Erebus' and spent all day looking over 

 the Southern collections. He is delighted with my drawings of sea-animals, of 

 which many are entirely new; I must, however, redouble my efforts on that head, 

 little as I care about them, as I hear that the Americans [U.S. Exploring Expedi- 

 tion, 1838-42, in command of Commodore Wilkes] have done much during their 

 voyage to them, and that, McLeay says, is the only thing they have done." Captain 

 P. P. King also visited the ship to see the collections. Some of the shells he 

 "recognised as South American, especially the small yellow bivalves from tbe, 

 Macvocystis" ["Life", Vol. i., pp. 121-122]. 



Within two years after W. S. Macleay's arrival in Sydney, he made the 

 acquaintance of Dr. James Stuart. Their friendship had a sequel, in which the So- 

 ciety is directly interested. I have not been able to learn anything more about this 

 worthy man than is given by W. S. Macleay himself, in the following extracts [date 

 not given] — "J. Stuart, Esq., is a surgeon in the army, who has been frequently 

 employed by the Colonial Government in superintending the quarantine to which 

 vessels arriving unhealthily in Port Jackson are subjected . . . . Here [at Spring 

 Cove] they remain under the care of a surgeon for the neeessai-y period ; and Mr. 

 Stuart, who has often undertaken this painful charge, has, by means of his ad- 

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

 observation, been enabled to employ to the advantage 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 (nat. size) here given, PI. 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 ac(|uired with respect to the habits and 

 structure of the species." Then follows a description based on Dr. Stuart's notes 

 [Ann. Mag., viii., p. 242, 1842] . 



Shortly afterwards, under date 9th August, 1841, W. S. Macleay sent a note 

 to the same Journal [viii., p. 337] giving "Additional particulars respecting 

 Antechinus Stuartii, a new Marsupial Quadruped." In this he says — "Since I 

 wrote to you concerning what I had reason at that time to think might possibly 

 prove to be a new quadruped belonging to the group of Insectlvora, I have had 

 an opportunity of examining a skeleton, now in the possession of Major Christie, 

 and which Mr. Stuart himself had prepared at the time the animal was killed. 

 This skeleton, by the presence of the marsupial bones, distinctly shows that the 

 quadruped in f|uestion belongs to the group Marsupialia. It also demonstrates 

 that there was an important error in the dental formula as given me in the manu- 

 script of Mr. Stuart, — the very error, indeed, that led me to think that the 

 animal might eventually be found to belong to the Insectivora." The dental for- 



