﻿46 Allen's naturalist's library. 



Halmaturus brachyotis, Schinz, Synops. Mamm., vol. i., p. 562 

 (1844). 



Characters. — Size medium ; form light and slender ; fur short 

 and thin. General colour greyish-fawn ; under-parts greyish 

 white ; face-markings almost obsolete ; ears very short, fawn- 

 grey on the back, with the edges and extreme tip white; a 

 dark brown blotch behind the elbow, followed by a whitish 

 band ; limbs pale grey ; tail grey above, whitish beneath, the 

 terminal fourth tufted inferiorly with longer dark brown hairs. 

 Length of head and body about 22 inches ; of tail 16 inches. 



Distribution. — North-west coast of Australia. 



IV. plain-coloured rock-wallaby, petrogale inornata. 



Petrogale mornata, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1842, p. 5; 



Thomas, Cat. Marsup. Brit. Mus., p. 70 (1888). 

 Halmaturus inornatus^ Schinz, Synops. Mamm., vol. i., p. 566 



(1844). 

 Macropus inornatus, Waterhouse, Nat. Hist. Mamm., vol. i., p. 



175 (1846). 



An imperfectly known form, very closely allied to P. brachyotis^ 

 and perhaps founded upon an individual of that species with 

 the markings unusually indistinct. 



Distribution. — North coast of Australia. 



Habits. — Sir George Grey, by whom this species was first 

 discovered in the neighbourhood of Hanover Bay, writes that 

 it is a very wild and shy animal, frequenting in the daytime 

 the highest and most inaccessible rocks, and only coming down 

 in the early morning and late in the evening to feed in the 

 valleys. When disturbed in the daytime, it bounds among 

 the roughest and most precipitous rocks, apparently with the 

 greatest ease, and is so watchful and wary that to obtain a suc- 

 cessful shot is by no means an easy matter. The heat of the 



