THE TASMANIAN THYLACINE 2 2/ 



appear to have been taken ; a special inquiry made 

 in London for such photographs proved fruitless. 

 In 1885 the old male thylacine died ; it was very fat 

 and exhibited no apparent cause of death. Its 

 anatomy was carefully investigated ; probably it was 

 the first specimen ever dissected in England. The 

 male of the pair purchased from Mr. Crowther died 

 on February 5th, 1890. 



Thanks to the liberality of donors in past 

 years when the species was abundant, the 

 various museums are fairly well off for pre- 

 served examples of the thylacine. A most 

 interesting group (male, female, and two young) well 

 mounted and exhibited, is in the Liverpool collection : 

 a stuffed example is also preserved at South Kensing- 

 ton. The National Collection also contains some 

 valuable spirit specimens of viscera, brought 

 home by the " Challenger " expedition and dissected 

 by Dr. D. J. Cunningham, whose memoir on 

 "Some points in the anatomy of the Thylacine, 

 Cuscus and Phascogale" will be found in the fifth 

 volume of the "Challenger" Reports. A thylacine 

 under the name of "New Holland Do^" figfures in the 

 list of spirit specimens in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons in 1859. This institution 

 besides the pair of skeletons presented by Mr. Gunn 

 in 1846, also possesses several other osteological 

 trophies of the thylacine. 



A male example of the present species was 



