EXISTING SPECIES OF THE GENUS PHASCOLOMYS. 
they tell us very little about it. In one part Péron says that later 
on he intends to deal in greater detail with the animals to which he 
makes brief reference, but unfortunately, he died before his work 
was completed, and in regard to the Bass Island wombat, the only 
really valuable record in Péron’s work is this plate. Possibly the 
figures were drawn from life by Lesueur during his enforced stay on 
the Island. The legend attached to the plate proves clearly that 
in 1808, the name Phascolomys wombat was applied by Lesueur 
and Petit to the King Island species. 
In the year 1802, also, Charles Grimes,* Acting Surveyor-General 
of New South Wales, made a voyage of discovery in the Cumberland 
from Sydney to King Island, and in a journal kept by Flemming, 
it is stated that the party from his ship met the members of the 
Baudin expedition, and that “the captain (Robbins) hoisted His 
Majesty’s colours behind the French tents.” The journal also says 
that on Thursday, 30th December, 1802, they “caught four emus, 
three badgers, three porcupines, and a kangaroo ”—badger being 
the popular name then applied to the wombat. 
While Baudin with his three boats, the Geographe, Naturaliste, and 
Casuarina, was exploring the southern coasts of Australia, he met 
Flinders at Encounter Bay. Flinders, in the Investigator, had previously 
to this visited King Island and there found the wombats} which were 
well-known to him after his experiences amongst the islands of the 
Furneaux Group. He says—‘ On stepping out of the boat, I shot 
one of those bear-like little quadrupeds, called womat, and another 
was afterwards killed.” Flinders was detained by the French at 
Mauritius, but material collected by Brown, who accompanied him 
as a naturalist, evidently reached Europe safely, for in 1808, Everard 
Home read a paper before the Royal Society in which he embodied 
an anatomical account of it written by Brodie.t Home says that the 
wombat was a male, that it ““ was brought from the islands in Basse’s 
Straits by Mr. Brown, the naturalist attached to Captain Flinders’ 
voyage of discovery. It lived in a domesticated state for two years. 
es de It was quiet during the day, but constantly in motion 
during the night. . . . . . It appeared to have arrived at its 
full growth, weighed about 20 lbs., and was about 2 feet 2 inches 
long.” 
In 1811, Ilhger enumerated two forms under the names respec- 
tively of Phascolomys fusca, Geoft., and Amblotis fossor, the latter 
genus being founded because Illiger, on account of the wrong de- 
scription of the teeth given by Collins, naturally imagined that the 
animal originally described under the name Vombatus could not be 
the same as that to which the generic title Phascolomys was afterwards 
given. The latter animal he distinguished as Phascolomys fusca.§ 
* Historical Recordsjof,Port Phillip. Edited by Shillinglaw, 1879. 
it Voyage to Terra Australis, 1814, p. 206. 
Trans. R.S., 1808, p. 304. 
§ Prodr. Syst. Mamm. et Avium, 1811, pp. 77-78. 
f 42] 
