CATALOGUE OF MAMMALS FROM NEAV GUINEA. 7 



f. Young female, from Aru Islands ; procured from Mr. A. 11. 

 Wallace. These two only differ from the adult sjjecimen in. the 

 silvery hairs of the back being rather more abundant, but they seem 

 to be deciduous. 



Phcdangista Pnpvensis of Desm. was described from a female 

 specimen collected by M. Gaimard, which was afterwards described 

 as Ph. Quoyi. In Quoy and Gaimard, ' Zoology to the Voyage of 

 the Uranie,' it is described as having a darker dorsal line, which 

 rather widens over the loins, which at once shows that it must be the 

 female of P. orient alls. 



Mr. Waterhousc has referred both these names without any com- 

 ment as a synonym of P. maculata, misled probably by Ilerr 

 Temminck, who (Mon. Mamm. i. 18) states it to be a young P. ma- 

 culata — evidently overlooking the dorsal stripe. 



Lesson, in the ' Voyage of the Coqnille,' tigures a male animal as 

 Cuscus albus, t. 6, from Port Praslin, New Ireland, which is white, 

 with a narrow black streak, just as in the female of this species. 



Knowing the little reliance that is often to be placed on ]\I. Les- 

 son's figures, I suspect it is the figure of a pale or perhaps bleached 

 specimen of a female P. orientalis, in which some fold of the pouch, 

 probably produced from bad stuffing, has been mistaken by the artist 

 for the scrotum of a male. 



3. Cuscus BREVICAUDATUS. 



Phalangista nudicaudata, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 110. 

 Cuscus brevicaudatus, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. 



The ears hid in the fur, woolly internally and externally ; tail 

 short; the forehead 1 ; the front lower cutting-teeth broad. 



Female uniform ashy-grey ; rump and base of tail, throat, chest 

 and belly yellowish dirty-white. 



Hab. Australia, Cape York. 



a. "A female two-thirds grown, from Cape York." Presented 

 by John Macgillivray, Esq, 



The only specimen known is very like the ashy variety of C. macu- 

 latus, but the front lower cutting-teeth are much broader, and the 

 tail, which has the bones still remaining on it, is considerably shorter 

 than any of our specimens of C. maciilatus. 



The specimen in the British Museum is that described by Mr. 

 Gould. 



Mr. Gould refers this animal to the subgenus Pseudocheims of the 

 genus Phalarif/ista, and calls it P. nudicaudata, because it " differs 

 from all the other Australian members of the genus in having the 

 apical three-fourths of its tail entirely destitute of hair." But Mr. 

 Gould overlooked the fact that it is not a Pseudocheivus, but a Cus- 

 cus, all the species of which have the major part of the tail naked ; 

 and the species under consideration has the naked part of the tail, 

 and indeed the tail itself, shorter than the rest of the species ; so that 

 the specific name of nudicaudata is singularly inapplicable. 



'J'he light mark on the runij), which Mr. Gould compared to (hat 



