﻿THE URSINE DASYURES. 



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habits, is universally termed by the colonists of its native island, 

 was first made known to science by Harris in the year 1808. 

 In his original account he writes that " these animals were very 

 common on our first settling at Hobart Town, and were par- 

 ticularly destructive to poultry, &c. They, however, furnished 

 the convicts with a fresh meal, and the taste was said to be not 

 unlike veal. As the settlement increased, and the ground 

 became cleared, they were driven from their haunts near the 

 town to the deeper recesses of the forests yet unexplored. 

 They are, moreover, easily secured by setting a trap in the 

 most unfrequented parts of the woods, baited with raw flesh, 

 all kinds of which they eat indiscriminately and voraciously ; 



Right Upper and Lower Teeth of the Tasmanlan Devil. 



they also, it is probable, prey on dead fish, blubber, &c., as 

 these are frequently found on the sand of the sea-shore. 



" In a state of confinement they appear to be untameably 

 savage, biting severely, and uttering at the same time a low 

 yelling growl. A male and female, which I kept for a couple 

 of months chained together in an empty cask, were continually 

 fighting. Their quarrels began as soon as it was dark (as they 

 slept all day) and continued throughout the night almost with- 

 out intermission, accompanied by a kind of hollow barking, 

 not unlike that of a dog, and sometimes a sudden kind of 

 snorting, as if the breath was retained a considerable time and 

 ttien suddenly expelled. They frequently sat on their hind 



