BY EDGAR R. WAITE. 



573 



the ground their tails are curved upwards, and do not as a rule 

 i-est on the ground as with ordinary kangaroos." 



Mr. Robert Grant, one of the Museum collectors, tells me that 

 when engaged in obtaining D. lumholtzi in company with Mr. E. 

 J. Cairn, he seldom saw them at rest, and never on the ground 

 excepting when driven from a tree. He did, however, on one or 

 two occasions observe them sitting on branches in the peculiar 

 attitude mentioned. 



He has given me some interesting information respecting the 

 capture of this species in the Herberton district which it may not 

 be out of place to mention here. 



The native name is Mapi (Marpee, according to English pronun- 

 ciation), and the animals are difficult to procure, as the blacks esteem 

 them a delicacy and only surrender their captures when compelled. 

 When a Mapi is discovered, a fence five or six feet in height and 

 several feet in diameter is built of rattan or lawyer canes 

 (Calamus) and bushes around the tree. Some of the blacks enter 

 the enclosure, ascend the tree, and drive the animal down ; it 

 usually jumps to the ground, often from a height of twenty feet. 

 Should it elect to descend the" trunk, it does so tail foremost. On 

 reaching the ground, the animal is eventually caught by the men 

 surrounding the enclosure, genei*ally by the tail, which member is 

 dragged through the fence, the unfortunate Mapi being despatched 

 with blows from a nulla nulla. The blacks will not venture 

 within the fence on account of the dread in which they hold the 

 powerful claws of the animal. The natives who hunted for Dr. 

 Lumholtz called the animal Boongary, and adopted a somewhat 

 different method of captui^e.* 



A specimen of D. dorianiis captured by Sir Wm. Macgregor and 

 party during their ascent of Mt. Owen Stanley was described by 

 Mr. C. Kowald to my colleague, Mr. Charles Hedley, as leaping 

 down twenty feet or so from the tree when attacked by the 

 hunters. Marks on the ground i-ound the tree seemed to show 

 that this was its usual mode of descent. Though too famished to 



* Vide " Among Cannibals," p. 231. 



