384 ZOOLOGY. 



DASYURIDS IN NEW GUINEA. 



The mammaliau fauua of Xew Guinea, until witliiu the last few years 

 but little knowu, has assumed a special interest on account of the num- 

 ber of types discovered related to Australian forms. Many groups that 

 were supposed to be peculiar to Australia have been found in the great 

 island. Among the most unexpected discoveries were those of two dis- 

 tinct generic representatives of the family of Tachyglossids or Echid- 

 uids. Besides these have been found true Phalangers, Dwarf and 

 Flying Phalangers, Cuscus, Kangaroos, Bandicoots, and Phascogales. 

 Xo typical carnivorous Marsupial had, however, been found, but 

 recently a species of that group has also been discovered. The species 

 in question belongs to the family of Dasyurids, and has been made 

 known by Professor Alj)honse Milne Edwards.* Specimens were ob- 

 tained in the Arfak Mountains, at the entrance of the Bay of Gelwinck, 

 on the north coast of New Guinea, bj^ the collectors of M. Bruijn, of 

 Ternate. The new species has been named Basyuriis fusctis. It is 

 smaller than any of those previously made known, little exceeding in 

 size a large rat. Its color is a very dark brown, but yellowish beneath j 

 there are small white rounded spots, regularly disposed on the upper 

 part of the body, and on the flanks, shoulders, and thighs. The tail is 

 long and not bushy. The short thumb is destitute of a nail. It is thus 

 most closely related to the Dcifiyurus hallncatus of the northern extrem- 

 ity of Australia. 



PLAGUE OF RATS. 



It is tolerably well known that in various countries — especially trop- 

 ical ones — once every few years there is a raid of enormous numbers 

 of "rats," or rat-like rodents, on the cultivated crops of the planters. 

 A plausible hypothesis has lately been promulgated correlating such 

 incursions with the maturation and death of plants whose progressively 

 increasing fruit, till a certain period, furnish food for the increasing- 

 rodents; but when the crowning crop has flourished and disappeared 

 the animals are forced to disperse in search of the food denied them in 

 their old homes. 



Mr. Orville A. Dewey has contributed to the Eio News a communi- 

 cation reproduced in Nature t on the rat plague observed in the Bra- 

 zilian pro%dnce of Parana. "This invasion, or plague as it is called, is 

 said to occur at intervals of about thirty years, and to be simultaneous 

 with the dying of the taquara, or bamboo, which everywhere abounds 

 in the Brazilian forests." In explanation it is alleged that " the bamboo 

 arrives at maturity, flowers, and seeds at intervals of several years, 

 which doubtless vary with the ditterent species. The period for the 

 species most abundant in Parana is thirty years. The process, instead 



* Edwards (Alphonse Milne). Ou a uew species of Dasyurus from New Guinea. 

 Ann. Marj. Xat. Hist, (5), vol. vi, pp. 171, 17*2. 

 tDewey (Orville A.). Plague of rats in Brazil. Xature, vol. xx, p. C5. 



