610 president's address. 



inula was correoted, and recognised as that of Phascogale [Phascolnr/ah] '•from 

 which genus our animal differs in the three lateral incisors of the upper jaw being 

 of equal size, and also in the pseudomolars being all of equal size." But there 

 is no record of W. S. Macleays "hopes of soon possessing a specimen from 

 Spring Cove, when I shall be liable to determine how far this animal 

 differs from the genus Phascogale, or whether it may not be safely 

 assigned to it." Thomas, in the British Museum Catalogue of Mareupials, 

 reduces Antechinus Stuartii Macleay to a synonym of Phascologale flavipes 

 Waterhouse. Nevertheless, Krefft (1871) still retained both Maeleay's genus and 

 the species. 



Under date 5th July. 1847, W. S. Macleay sent a letter to the Sychueii Morn- 

 ing Herald, entitled "On the skull now exhibited at the Colonial Museum of Syd- 

 ney, as that of the 'Bunyip'." The skull had been sent to him for report by the 

 Speaker of the Legislative Council [Dr., afterwards Sir Charles Nicholson] to 

 •whom it had been forwarded by Mr. Edward Curr of Port Phillip, as that of tho 

 so-called Bunyip or Kine Pratie. He was induced to send the description of it 

 for publication, "as another and still more extraordinary skull in my ])ossession 

 offers very considerable means for throwing light on the subject.'' After de- 

 scribing the skull sent by Dr. Nicholson, he proceeds — "I have, however, I repeat, 

 in my possession the skull of a foetus of a mare, which was found floating on the 

 River Hawkesbury, in the year 1841. This skull was prepared by the lamented 

 late Dr. Stewart [Dr. Stuart], and he has made drawings and notes of it, which 

 I intend before long to publish, with his other observations on various branches 

 of natural historv'." The letter concludes with the statement — "In my judgment, 

 however, the animal is not new, and this skull, when compared with the one from 

 the Havvkesbury only serves to show the extreme limits between which all 

 monstrous variation of the place of the eyes in the horse can possibly occur." 



From this letter, it appears that Dr. Stuart died before July, 1847, but I 

 have not been able to ascertain exactly when. Also that his drawings and notes 

 were then in the possession of W. S. Macleay; for they were a bequest from the 

 artist. 



While the drawings were in the possession of W. S. Macleay, they were 

 shown to the Governor, Sir William Denison, under the circumstances narrated 

 in a letter to his son, dated 6th February, 1859 — "I told you in my last letter, that 

 Sir Daniel Cooper and I were about to send a schooner down the coast to trawl 

 for fish and dredge for shells. . . Great excitement has been caused in tlie Legis- 

 lative Assembly by the production of a tortoise, which was said to have been found 

 alive in a cavity in the rock 13 feet under gi-ound, and 4 feet from the surface of 

 the rock, by the men employed upon the railway cutting. The Speaker sent it to 

 me, and I took it to Mr. W. [S.] Macleay, who pronounced it to be a young 

 specimen of the 'Emys longicoUis,' or long-necked tortoise, which is common in 

 this country. There must have been a crevice in the stone, through which tlie 



animal had penetrated into its receptacle When I went to Mr. ilacleay 



to ask him about the tortoise, he showed us a set of drawings of Australian fish, 

 many of which, he said, were to be caught in Middle Harbor, so we had decided 

 to go down and ti-y for them both with hook and line and the seine; but a 

 southerly wind set in, which made it impracticable to get into Middle Harhoiir 

 with any comfort, and as the fish never bite in a southerly wind, we gave up our 

 expedition" [Varieties of Vice-Regal Life, Vol. ii., p. 458]. 



