2 28 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



purchased by the London Zoological Society on 

 March 26th, 1902, being one of four then in the 

 possession of Carl Hagenbeck, the well-known wild 

 beast merchant.^ The writer has spent some time in 

 studying its movements and, while there was yet 

 time, took several photographs from life, one of 

 which appears in this book. The value of such life 

 studies is apparent in view of the many inaccuracies 

 perpetrated on the tiger wolf by artists and taxider- 

 mists. The old naturalists called it the " dog-headed 

 thylacinus " from the alleged mastiff-like stoutness of 

 the jaw and head ; but a careful study of the living 

 animal shows that the head is much more slender 

 than one would have supposed from illustrations in 

 books, and the writer possesses one photograph 

 taken " full face " in which the muzzle appears of 

 almost snipe-like attenuation. The tail again is 

 rudder-like, as already mentioned, not curling above 

 the beast's head — an atrocity actually perpetrated in 

 a work of some standing; even Harris has made the 

 tail too limp.^ Freeman's figure in another book is 

 really good and a very creditable presentment of a 

 beast whose rarity much militates against any 

 European artist figuring it from life. Schlegel's 



1 The two thylacines sent about this time to tlie Cologne 

 Zoolosrical Gardens, -where they are still living, probably belonged to 

 this batch, 



2 Far from being flexible, tlie tail of tlie thylacine is said to be 

 so stiff that the animal cannot wag it ; a photograpli recently publiffhed 

 in Nature shows an individual standing with the tail leaning against 

 the ground like a bar of iron. 



