EXISTING SPECIES OF THE GENUS PHASCOLOMYS. 
Owen remarks that it is a little larger than the largest wombat’s 
cranium in the Hunterian collection. This is not surprising, since 
the latter specimens were all presented by Home, and came from 
King Island. 
In 1836, Owen described the anatomy of a specimen* under the 
name of Phascolomys wombat, Péron, at the same time making the 
following remarks :—* The individual lately dissected at the museum 
of the Zoological Society had lived at the gardens upwards of five 
years. The one dissected by Sir Everard Home in 1808 was brought 
from one of the islands in Bass Strait, and lived as a domestic pet in 
the house of Mr. Clift for two years. This animal measured 2 feet 
2 inches in length, and weighed about 20 lbs. It was a male. The 
society’s specimen was a female and weighed, when in full health, 
in October, 1833, 594 lbs.” Owen does not say where his specimen 
came from. The first definite notice of the existence of a wombat in 
Tasmania that we can find is in the paper published by Gunn in 
1838, to which we have already referred. The author, Mr. Ronald 
Gunn, was well known as a naturalist in the early days of Tasmania.t 
In this he describes the animal under the generic title Phascolomys, 
but gives no specific name. He states that one large specimen that 
he secured measured 36 inches from snout to tail, and 34 inches 
in circumference. 
Waterhouse,{ writing in 1841, accepts the name Phascolomys wom- 
bat, and says that “‘ the wombat is found in New South Wales, South 
Australia, and Van Diemen’s Land, as well as in some of the Islands 
in Bass’s Straits.” Gunn’s collection was presented to the British 
Museum, and possibly it included the young specimen mentioned 
by Gray in his catalogue,§ with the locality given as Van Diemen’s 
Land. So far as we can ascertain this was the first occasion on which ° 
a specific name was applied to a definite example of a Tasmanian 
wombat, Gray regarding it as an example of Phascolomys ursinus. 
In 1845, Owen in his article on Marsupialia in Todd’s Cyclo- 
pedia,|| deals with many points in the anatomy of the wombat and 
figures a complete skeleton, the name Phascolomys fusca appearing 
under the figure. This is the only mention that he makes of this 
specific name. In the same year he exhibited at a meeting of the 
Zoological Society§| “ the skull of a wombat (Phascolomys vombatus, 
Auct.) from Van Dieman’s Land, and the skull of a wombat trans- 
mitted by Governor Grey from Continental (South) Australia.” He 
pointed out their differences and named the new continental form 
P. latifrons. In 1847** Gray drew attention to certain differences 
* P.Z.8., 1836, Pt. 4, p. 49. 
+ “ Notices accompanying a Collection of Quadrupeds and Fish from Van Diemen’s Land. 
Annals Nat. Hist., Vol. i., 1838, p. 101. 
t Jardine’s Naturalist's Library, 1841, p. 300. 
§ List of the Specimens of Mammalia in the Collection of the British Muscum, 1848, p. 95. 
\| Vol. iii., 1839-1847, fig. 105. 
4 P.Z.S., 1845, Pt. xiii., p. 82. 
** P.Z.8., 1847, Pt. xv., p. 41. 
[ 45 J 
